


To the Attic and Back Again

by ladyshadowdrake



Category: Marvel, Toy Story (Movies)
Genre: Adventures, Dinosaurs, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Toy Story AU, guest appearances from DC folks, various tsum tsums
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 22:39:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11045808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyshadowdrake/pseuds/ladyshadowdrake
Summary: Searching for birthday presents, Sharon leads her toys on a covert mission to the attic and discovers a lost treasure - Captain America, sealed up in a cardboard box for years, just waiting to be found. Finding Captain America turns out to be just the beginning of the adventures for the toys of Sharon's Room.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2017 Cap/Iron Man RBB, with fantastic art by @hundredthousands over on Tumblr! 
> 
> Check out the art here: http://hundredthousands.tumblr.com/post/161253730976/to-the-attic-and-back-again-by-ladyshadowdrake
> 
> Thank yous to Synteis and Arukou for beta and cheer leading!

“You’re not going to believe this Iron Man,” Rhodey said from his perch up high, “but you’ve got dinosaurs coming in on your six.”

“ _Dinosaurs?_ Who invited them?” Tony demanded, but he turned, and sure enough – four velociraptors and a t-rex came thundering around the corner with a brontosaurus lumbering after them. Tony lurched to the side, barely avoiding getting his arm chomped off by the lead raptor, and then rolled out of the way of the t-rex, who had obvious issues with her turning radius.

Clint leapt over a bright pink car that had been overturned by the Hulk and fired three arrows at the t-rex in rapid succession, which only made the beat howl in anger. The arrows clattered to the ground, and the t-rex stepped on them just for spite.

“Oh, that’s _low_ ,” Clint complained, but he hauled Tony up by one arm and they both leapt over the car. On the other side of a large bubblegum-pink mansion to match the bubblegum-pink car, Abomination and Hulk were throwing trees at each other with Thor smacking them both indiscriminately. He wasn’t sure where Spiderman had webbed off to, but Jan was chasing Magneto down Main Street.

“Could this _get_ any more ridiculous?” Tony asked.

He should have known better than to put that out there. The ground began to tremble and the distant thunder of a truly massive footfalls reverberated through the air.

Everyone froze, even the dinosaurs, and then Spiderman yelled, “Everyone back to their places! _RUN!_ ”

They scattered as one mass, pushing and tripping over each other to get back into position. The whole world turned into a chaos of running superheroes, dinosaurs, and ladies in cute heels.

Jan pushed Thor down on the rug and dropped down with her knees over his hips, and then gestured frantically for Tony. “You were on top!” she hissed.

Tony gauged his position, and then flopped over in a heap on top of them. Everything went Still mere moments before Sharon threw the bedroom door open and rushed inside.

“We’re going on a mission, Iron Man!” she announced, flinging her door shut behind her. She skidded into the room and dropped to her knees, sliding the last foot to where she’d left Tony and his teammates. Thor’s damn hammer was digging into his back, but he was probably smothering Jan, so he couldn’t complain too much.

Sharon scooped him up and rotated his arms so they were straight up, and then pulled his knee up, pointed his opposite toe and _zoomed_ around the room. “A portal has opened to an alien world!” she explained, jumping onto her bed, and then jumping back off and twirling in a circle. “It’s a dangerous mission. There could be hostile aliens, or a toxic atmosphere, but I know you can do it, Iron Man.”

Straightening his legs back out, she set him down on the desk. He fell over the first time, but she quickly picked him back up and adjusted his feet so he’d stand upright on his own. Her fingers grabbed his wrists and gently rotated his arms down to his sides. He saw that her nails were still painted candy apple red with gold sparkles, and felt a little smug as she leaned back to give him a serious look.

“What do you say, Iron Man? Will you take the mission?” She rotated his arm for him so he could give her a salute and then lowered her voice and said, “ _Of course, your directorship!_ ” just like he would have if he could have talked for himself. “ _There’s no job too dangerous for the Invincible Iron Man!_ ”

Sharon leaned in close to whisper to him, “We’re going to sneak into the attic and see what mom’s hiding up there. Bet there’s birthday presents.”

She winked at him, and, safely hidden by the plastic faceplate, Tony winked back. When they’d gone searching for presents at Christmas, they’d found them up in Mom’s closet, but Mom had gotten crafty since then. They hadn’t been able to find any of the birthday presents despite three concerted investigations with Jan and Clint to help, and they’d even climbed on the kitchen counters to look in the cupboard on top of the fridge.

Wrapping her hand securely around his waist, Sharon stopped to pick up the rest of the Avengers and arranged them on the on the bed. “This mission is too dangerous for anyone who’s not in a special suit,” she told them, and then dropped to her knees – unintentionally smashing Tony’s faceplate against the floor – and crawled under the bed.

“Rhodey!” she called, dragging out a shoe box, her backpack, a single slipper, and three socks with no matches. “Where are you?”

Squirming out from under the bed, Sharon tossed Tony to the coverlet with his teammates and walked on her knees to the desk. She dragged the chair out first and looked underneath, and then started pulling out drawers. If Tony could talk to humans, he would have told her that Rhodey was up on top of the bookcase where she’d positioned him as recon for their last mission, but he couldn’t because there were Rules.

“If you’ve gone AWOL, you’ll be in big trouble, mister,” she warned, getting up to look on top of her dresser and finding Vision. She lobbed him over to the bed, where he bounced once and landed face-down on the pillow. Sharon opened the drawers one-by-one, unearthing Black Widow and Scarlet Witch from the pajama drawer, and then Nyota Uhura from the bottom shelf of the bookcase. All three went to the bed in one underhanded toss.

“Sharon!” Mom called from downstairs.

Sharon made an irritated noise that Tony felt in his plastic – didn’t Mom know they had a mission to plan? – and pushed her desk chair over to the bookcase. She threw the Hulk, and then Bruce in their direction. Hulk landed on the city street rug between 5th Avenue and Home Street, but Bruce managed to land across Natasha’s lap.

“Sorry,” Sharon called over her shoulder at the downed Hulk, and then reached over the top of the bookcase and made a triumphant noise. “Gotcha!”

“ _Sharon!”_ Mom called again. “Lunch time!”

“I’m _coming!_ ” Sharon shouted back, glaring at the door. She looked down at Rhodey, twisting his limbs back into a natural position, and then over at the bed. “I guess the mission is just going to have to wait,” she said regretfully, “I have an important state luncheon to attend. You know how these things are, Colonel.”

Hopping down from the chair, she grabbed the Hulk off the floor, and then took a moment to rearrange everyone on the bed so they were all sitting up right. She put Rhodey next to Tony on the pillow, gave them both a sternly wagged finger and said, “You two discuss some infiltration strategies while I’m gone. I expect a full working plan by the time I get back.”

“ _Sharon Ann Carter!”_

Sharon stomped over to the door, yanked it open, and shouted, “I said _I’m coming_!”

“Don’t you yell at me, young lady! Come down and eat!”

Tony hated it when Mom yelled at Sharon not to yell. Talk about mixed messages, lady. He glared at the door as Sharon brought up a hand, and opened and closed it by her ear, mocking, “ _Don’t yell, Sharon_!” in a little, nasal voice.

Returning to the bed, Sharon grabbed Jan and Uhura, and then rushed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. They all stayed still while they listened to Mom yelling at Sharon not to slam doors, and only relaxed when they were sure Sharon wasn’t going to enlist another one of them for the luncheon.

“Coast is clear!” Tony called, crawling to the edge of the bed. Everyone pushed out of their places, Spiderman catching onto the lever of the closet door so Abomination could push it open from the other side. A whole troop of dolls, dinosaurs, action figures, three rubber duckies, and a giant panda plush marched out after him. Hulk stuck his tongue out from the bed and poor Bruce just shook his head when Abomination threw them a rude hand-sign in response.

“Sounds like an exciting mission,” Clint said, standing and automatically checking that all his arrows were in place. “Maybe she’ll leave you up there on her way down,” he added, prodding at Tony’s stomach with his bow.

Tony reached up and opened the face plate. “Dream on, Featherhead. Alright, everyone, come on, bring it in. From the sounds of this mission, we’re not going to have a lot time to plan before Sharon gets back from the state luncheon. Everyone accounted for and in one piece?” He leaned over the edge of the bed to do a visual count as all the toys gathered on the rug.

There was a murmur, and then a few dozen collective affirmatives. The mini tsum tsums had stacked themselves up into a pyramid with the three Iron Man tsums on the bottom and Falcon settling smugly in at the top. The whole pyramid tipped dangerously to one side, but Daisy Pop Barbie helped them back to into a stable position and got a kiss on the cheek from Falcon tsum for helping.

“Atta boy,” Sam said approvingly. He dramatically spread his wings and glided down from the top of the bookcase where he’d been playing lookout with Rhodey. He managed to crash into Nat and Thor on the way down and immediately lost all of his cool points as he tripped over himself to apologize. Thor just laughed and picked him up by the hips to set him back on his feet while Natasha dusted herself off. She casually tripped Sam over a comforter button and then held a hand out to help him back up with a very unconvincing, “Oops.”

Tony put a hand to his face and shook his head. “I work with a bunch of children.”

“Lighten up, Tones,” Rhodey said, prying his face plate up with some effort, and giving him a smile. “They’re just toys.” He nudged Tony gently on the shoulder. “And so are you, in case you forgot.”

“Are you kidding?” Tony scoffed. “I’m Iron Man.”  He clapped his hands together to get everyone’s attention, and then turned to look up at the hammock above the bed. All the plushies were watching dutifully, the large Hulk tsum tsum so buried in stuffed bunnies and other plush dolls that he was watching the meeting with his face pressed into the netting.

“Depending on the success of the mission, tonight could get dicey. Last time Mom caught us snooping in the attic, Sharon was grounded for three entire days, and we all ended up in a plastic box in the garage.” There was a general murmur of concern, the toys shuffling nervously on the rug. “I know some of you weren’t here for the Raft stay, so I just wanted to take a moment to reassure everyone that though Mom might stomp and yell, she has never yet thrown a single toy away. So if the worst comes to pass and we’re all shoved into the Raft, just remember that we _will_ all come home.”

He waited for the murmur of concern to die down and then continued, “Just in case, everyone pick a buddy. Remember who your buddy is and keep track of each other! Especially you, little tsums.”

He got more than dozen chirps in response. Sharon had asked for tsum tsums for Christmas and had ended up getting several duplicates that were scattered around the carpet in groups. Even after she’d adopted a few out to other homes, she still had three Iron Mans, two Black Widows, two little Hulks and the one big one, and three Rocket Raccoons. It was a mess when they got into a fight, but they were cute enough that most of the toys didn’t mind.

“And no fighting,” he added for good measure.

Thor nudged the Hulk. “Did you hear that, mighty oaf?”

With a rumble, the Hulk punched Thor right off the bed. He hit the carpet, clattered to the hard wood and then stood up to shake his hammer at the smugly grinning Hulk. He ended up a little too close to the metal bedframe and the magnet in his hammer stuck fast to it with _clang_. The Hulk threw his head back and bellowed a laugh, dropping onto his back and kicking his feet so hard that Bruce ended up falling over.

Tony turned to Natasha while Thor yelled in frustration. Loki tsum had joined the Hulk’s laughter and Thor tsum was doing his ineffectual plushy best to help his buddy get the hammer off the bedframe. “Better have those two work it out of their system while we’re gone. Just in case.”

“I’ll throw one of the Play Kitchen steaks on the ground and let them duke it out,” she promised, waving one unconcerned hand.

“Just no broken parts. Sharon still hasn’t gotten that Doctor McCoy doll she asked for, and Bruce gets a little stressed out playing medical doctor, you know?”

Nat nodded, and the meeting broke up, toys shuffling close to their positions in case Sharon managed to sneak up on them. Tony moved back to the pillow and sprawled out with his arms above his head to wait for Rhodey.

“Should we plan some infiltration strategies?” Rhodey asked, plopping down next to him.

“What’s the point? We can’t report them to her anyway.” Tony drew up his knee and crossed the opposite foot over his thigh. He was reasonably sure that, if Iron Man actually existed, his hips wouldn’t be so mobile. But then again, he _was_ Tony Stark, so who knew?

“Wanna make a guess on the plan?”

“Step ladder out of the hall closet, pull on the cord, climb into the attic,” Tony dutifully listed, holding up his fingers one at the time.

Rhodey shrugged, plastic armor clicking softly. “She might surprise us and try to go through the window again,” he said, “Mom _is_ just down stairs after all.”

Tony shuddered at the thought. “She better not – she almost fell, and that’s what got us Rafted last time.”

“Girl sure thinks she can fly,” Rhodey agreed, shaking his head slightly. “You remember that time you and her went up the tree after the squirrel?”

Tony shuddered at the remembered horror of falling from her hand and hitting every branch on the way down, but her terrified scream and the crashing sound of her following him had been worse. That they’d both walked away without a scratch had been a miracle that he wasn’t willing to examine too closely. “Don’t remind me.”

Rhodey opened his mouth to respond, but they heard the distinctive _clatterclatterthumpthumpthump!_ of Sharon running up the stairs.

“Places everybody!” Hulk roared, and the room was once again a flurry of activity as they all scrambled for their places. Spider Man hurried everyone into the closet, and shoved the door shut with Falcon’s help, just in time for them both to get back up the side of the bookcase.

Tony almost forgot to put his faceplate down, but Rhodey reached over to snap it down for him right before Sharon burst back into the room. She closed the door behind her with exaggerated care, and then swiped her Spider Man backpack off the floor and hastily shook out a collection of loose paper, mechanical pencils, character erasers, and three miniatures that Tony had been hunting for since school ended. He’d thought they’d been lost and was happy to see them again. Poor things must have been trapped at the bottom of the backpack all summer.

“Alright,” Sharon said, opening her desk drawer and rifling through it, “Mom’s on the phone with Aunt Peggy and they’re talkin’ shop, so we got at least nine or ten years before she comes looking for us.”

She held up her Black Widow flashlight with the hour-glass shaped red lens, but after half a dozen clicks and a good shake, concluded that it was dead and dug back into the drawer. She came up with the Kid Adventure green flashlight that wasn’t nearly as cool, but at least turned on. Sharon tossed the flashlight into the bag, and then emptied her pockets of fruit snack packets and a bag of Goldfish that looked like it had seen better days.

“Flashlight, provisions… where’s my jump rope?” she muttered, tearing under the bed again, and then making for the closet. The giant panda came flying out to land in the middle of the rug, but no other toys followed suit. She came back out with her lime green jump rope, and the Ant Man helmet from her last year’s Halloween costume on her head.

“Anytime you go on an adventure,” she explained, her voice muffled by the helmet, “You gotta bring rope and snacks.” She set the panda upright by the dresser and gave him a pat on head. The rope joined the rest of the supplies and then she crawled onto the bed and snagged Tony and Rhodey by their feet. “Am I forgetting anything, Colonel Rhodes?”

She tipped her head to listen carefully for his answer and then nodded decisively. “Alright, let’s move out. Natasha, you’re in charge while we’re gone. You cover for us with Mom in case she comes looking, got it?”

Tony and Rhodey went into the pack to land among the coils of the jump rope, and then they were off, shaking and bumping around with each step. They both crowded over to the gap in the zipper to watch as Sharon quietly crept out of the room and shut the door behind her. Tony crossed his fingers as she hovered at the top of the stairs – if she went down, they were going to be climbing up the rose trellis again. She peered over the handrail, listened to Mom laughing on the phone for a second, and then crept back into the hallway. Rhodey elbowed him in the side and gave him a thumbs up. Tony let out a quiet sigh of relief. He loved his girl, but being her toy was an exercise in extreme stress management.

Just as Tony had predicted, Sharon carefully opened the hall closet and shoved a pile of blankets over so she could dig the step ladder out. It was just barely tall enough for her to reach the string to the attic entrance if she stood on her tippy-toes, and they almost fell over, but she managed to grasp the string and steady herself by pulling it down.

The attic stairs came down with a rusty _creeeak_. Sharon winced, crouching down low and twisting around so their view momentarily switched to the stairs again. In the living room, Mom continued on talking too loudly, and Sharon let out a quiet _whew_. Next to him, Rhodey breathed a _whew_ of his own. Tony reached forward to squeeze his shoulder, and then they both took a tumble as Sharon climbed up the stairs.

“We gotta be fast,” Sharon explained in a whisper. “I can’t close the door from up here, so hopefully Mom doesn’t come check on us.”

Sharon rustled through the bag looking for the flashlight, and Tony bent The Rules just a tiny bit to pass it to her. She reached in for them afterwards, and then took a moment to move their arms directly out in front of them so they could balance on the backpack once the zipper was closed up around them. She put the backpack on over her chest so they could see what she was doing, and then set about creeping around the attic.

It was a predictably dusty place, hung with cobwebs, and filled with strange shapes. Sharon’s breath hitched and she jumped when a vaguely human form loomed out of the darkness. Tony would have fallen out of the bag, but Rhodey surreptitiously tangled their hands together and he settled against the zipper again while Sharon caught her breath. She directed the flashlight beam over the shape, hissing at it reproachfully when it turned out to be Mom’s dress form with two dozen pins sticking out of the shoulders and a floppy flowered hat balanced on top.

“Darn old thing,” Sharon said, giving it a shove, and then moving on with a huff. She checked around the boxes, in the clear plastic tubs with the wrapping paper, and underneath the cloth draping a pair of old wing chairs and a table.

“Nothing! I think this mission’s a bust, guys. We’ll have to head back to HQ and regroup with the rest of the team to brainstorm.” She kicked lightly at a box in disappointment and the flashlight beam passed over the thick letters written in black Sharpie on one side: **Peggy’s stuff**.

“Hey, what’s Aunt Peggy’s stuff doing here?” Setting the flashlight down, she knelt on the dusty floor and stripped out of the backpack. She took the time to arrange them on top of the covered chair so they could see what she was doing, and then pulled the top of the box off and shined the light inside.

On top was a photo album with a puffy cover in flower-print material and yellowing lace. Sharon lifted it out carefully and opened it up, but found it filled with baseball cards. She snickered, and flipped through them before setting the album aside. Underneath it was a crocheted blanket, a partially deflated football, two dirty baseballs, and some old trophies.

“Wow, this stuff is old,” Sharon said. She finally reached up to take her mask off and swiped the back of her wrist over her forehead. “It’s okay,” she reassured them, “My readout said the air’s okay to breathe.”

She promptly started sneezing and quickly dragged her t-shirt up to stifle the sound. Safe behind his faceplate, Tony snickered quietly. Rhodey poked him in the back where his hand was hidden from Sharon by Tony’s body. Tony stuck his tongue out, even though Rhodey couldn’t see his face. Rhodey would know, just like Tony knew that Rhodey was rolling his eyes.

“Bless me,” Sharon said once she’d stopped sneezing, and then moved to put the blanket back in the box, but froze. “Oh. My. _Gawd_ ,” she breathed, hovering in a crouch with the blanket in her hands.

Tony looked into the box and realized what she’d seen with a jolt – an old doll with a distinctive blue outfit and a star on his chest. Sharon dropped the blanket and carefully reached into the box, moving as slowly as if it was filled with explosives. She sounded like she was starting to hyperventilate as she drew out the dingy stuffed doll.

“ _Captain America!”_ she squealed quietly. “I have been looking for you _forever!_ Oh my God, oh my God!”

She squirmed on her knees and hugged the doll to her chest. “I can’t believe I found you!”

Tony couldn’t believe it either, and it took effort to pick his jaw up from the bottom of the faceplate. Captain America was practically a myth. Sharon hadn’t even known who he was until Aunt Peggy had given her some old comics. She’d been looking for a Cap doll ever since, but no one made merchandise for such an obscure old superhero.

“ _Wow!_ Aunt Peggy is _the best_!”

“Sharon!” Mom called, making Sharon jump. “Come down and say hi to your aunt!”

Sharon hurriedly put the blanket and the photo album back in the box, and then fumbled the top back on. She quickly stuffed Tony and Rhodey back into the pack, shoved the flashlight in next to them, and very gently laid Cap in their laps before zipping the bag back up.

Tony stared down at Captain America in shock. He was obviously old, made entirely out of cloth, and dingy from age and storage. It was hard to really see him in the almost-darkness of the pack, especially with Sharon hurrying back down the stairs to the step ladder, but Tony could just make out the red stripes on his uniform and the star on his chest. He exchanged a silent look with Rhodey while the attic door _creeeaked_ back up. They scrambled to hold onto their passenger when Sharon hopped off the step ladder to the floor, making the backpack jump. The flashlight landed on Tony’s head, and he shoved it off with a glare and a muffled _ow!_

“Sharon! Aunt Peggy’s on the phone!”

“Coming!” Sharon shouted. They heard the clatter of the step ladder being shoved back in the closet, and then the horror of Mom’s footsteps on the stairs.

“Hide him!” Rhodey whispered. They struggled to get the loops of the jump rope over the Captain America doll, and then stretched out over him, just in case Mom checked the backpack.

“Sharon, are you looking for birthday presents again?” Mom asked, exasperated. “Your birthday isn’t for another three months.”

“I know!” Sharon said, and then quickly amended, “I wasn’t looking for anything.”

“Sure,” Mom said, “You just wear your backpack around the house all the time. I’m sure I won’t find Iron Man and Hawkeye in there if I opened it up.”

“Nope!” Sharon said, which wasn’t technically a lie. She shuffled back and forth, and then called out, “Hi, Aunt Peggy!”

“Oh, for goodness sake,” Mom said with a heavy sigh. Three soft electric beeps sounded in the air. “Oh, darn it. Peggy, the phone’s about to die – hang on just a second so I can grab the other handset! Sharon, come downstairs with me.”

“Okay!” Sharon chirped at Mom’s retreating footsteps. Instead of following downstairs, she hurried into the bedroom and plunked the pack down on the bed. The zipper opened a moment later and she peered inside. “Take care of Cap until I get back,” she whispered, and then was gone.

For several seconds after Sharon had left, they sat in stunned silence. Rhodey regained his wits first and started digging through the coils of the jump rope to unearth Sharon’s startling find. Tony was almost willing to believe it had been some kind of weird dream, but there Cap was, eyes made out of glass beads and mouth stitched on with embroidery floss.

“Did that actually just happen?” Rhodey asked in a hushed voice. “Seriously? She was looking for Cap the day she picked me out from the rack. I didn’t even think he _existed_.”

Tony shrugged. “Me either, outside of those old comics anyways. Hey, Cap?” Tony nudged him. “You can wake up now, the people are gone.”

They waited in tense silence, but Cap continued to stare placidly up at the gap in the zipper. Tony nudged him again, and then pressed his fingers against the side of Cap’s neck.

Rhodey shoved his shoulder. “He doesn’t have a _pulse_ , he’s a _toy_.”

“I know,” Tony said, yanking his faceplate open, “I just always wanted to try that. Why isn’t he waking up?”

“I heard that the really old ones, the forgotten toys that haven’t been played with in a long time, they just…” Rhodey shrugged. “Go to sleep, and they forget they can talk, or move, or anything. You know, like those porcelain dolls Mom’s got in the glass cases downstairs?”

Tony sighed. What a disappointment to unearth _Captain America_ and he didn’t even remember he was alive. Then again, Tony probably wouldn’t want to remember he was alive if he’d been left in a box for who knows how long. It must have been horrible, all alone in the dark, slowly gathering dust. He shuddered again and touched Cap lightly on one arm.

“Think we should climb out and tell the others?” Rhodey asked.

Tony shook his head. “No way Sharon stays on the phone longer than a couple minutes with this guy waiting for her upstairs. We better stay put and keep an eye on him until she comes back. Stick your head out and tell everyone to keep Still.”

Sure enough, Rhodey barely had time to get the zipper open and make the announcement before they heard Sharon’s excited footsteps on the stairs. Rhodey didn’t have time to close the zipper again – it was tough from inside the pack – so he just dropped down next to Tony and went Still.

Sharon opened and closed the door so softly that Tony barely heard it. She only moved quietly when she was trying to avoid Mom paying too much attention to her. The floorboards creaked as she tip-toed across the room, and then the bed dipped under her weight. Tony and Rhodey tumbled over when the pack was dragged across the comforter.

The zipper opened very slowly and Sharon’s face appeared in the opening with one eye closed and the other barely cracked open. She whooshed out a giant sigh of relief and reached into the pack with both hands to lift Cap out from among the loops of the jump rope. She reached back in to grab Tony and Rhodey with one hand almost as an afterthought – Tony ended up being yanked out with his arm pinned to Rhodey’s leg. They were dropped unceremoniously on the bed at her side and she took a few seconds to push the toys around so she could sit cross legged on the pillow with Cap in her lap.

Once she was settled, she pulled Tony over to sit on her thigh, his back pressed against her stomach, hands arranged on his knees. Cap lay in the crook of her opposite knee. He looked even more dingy and dirty in the light, and he had a tear in one foot where his stuffing was creeping out. She brushed gentle fingers across the tear, and rubbed one thumb over a cloudy black eye until it shone in the sunlight.

“Poor thing,” Sharon said, curling her hand around Tony’s stomach. “He’s been all alone up there for a long time, Iron Man. Don’t worry, Cap. Me and Iron Man are going to get you all fixed up, and you’ll be good as new.”

She cast a look at the mess she’d made of the room and reluctantly set Cap down on the pillow. She arranged Tony next to him so their arms were pressed together, and then slid off the bed to start picking up the papers and pencils she’d scattered around the room earlier. Tony’s head had been turned when she set him down, so he got to stare at the old doll while Sharon shuffled through papers and put toys away. Cap was unique, and now that Tony could look at him more closely, he looked hand-made. He even had a nose with little nostrils outlined in thread, and his cowl had been meticulously stitched together. It looked like it might come off, though it was fitted so closely to his head that Tony wasn’t completely sure.

Once the floor had been cleared away, Sharon came back to the bed with her sewing kit and dragged Cap off the pillow. Tony could just barely see her from his vantage point, and watched as she focused on Cap’s torn foot with her bottom lip sucked between her teeth. She pricked her finger once and spent a few seconds sucking on the tiny wound before doggedly returning to her task. When she was finished, she held the doll up for Tony’s approval. The stuffing had been pushed back into his boot, and Tony could clearly see the stitches, but they were neat and small, and at least he was put together. Tony would have given her a thumbs up and told her that she was wonderful if only he could talk to her.

Sharon checked her alarm clock on the side-table, and then looked at the door, and back to Cap. She stood up and grabbed her bathrobe off the back of her chair, and then wrapped Cap in the folds and hugged him to her chest.

She crept out of the room and closed the door behind her. “I’m taking a bath!” she yelled down the stairs.

“At three in the afternoon?” Mom called back up, but didn’t say anything else when Sharon didn’t respond. A moment later, the bathroom door opened and closed.

~*~

It was tough to keep the excited chatter down once the news spread that _Captain America_ had finally been found. After years of searching for a Cap doll, their girl finally had one in hand. Tony caught all the nervous glances being tossed his way from the rest of the Avengers still on the bed – new toys in the room always came with a certain level of anxiety, but Sharon was a great playmate. She was careful to make sure all of her toys got playtime, and even rotated who got to go to school or on family trips. Tony wasn’t worried. Much.

He did he best to keep everyone in their positions, but he didn’t think that any of them even heard him remind them that Sharon could be gone for two minutes or two hours. Rhodey was quickly dogpiled by half a dozen excited tsum tsums, only to be rescued by the Hulk, who promptly absconded to the top of the desk where he thumped Rhodey down, sat on his legs, and demanded to know about ”Cap’ ‘Merica”

“Little help?” Rhodey called, ineffectually trying to shove the Hulk off.

Tony popped the faceplate open and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Sorry, buddy! You’re on your own! They all know that I am impervious to interrogation.”

“Traitor!” Rhodey yelled, but the last syllable was buried under a pile of plushy tsum tsums, all chirping his name.

The comforter shifted and Daisy Pop Barbie tugged herself onto the bed. She took a second to rearrange her polka dot dress and then minced over the comforter and dropped down next to him on the pillow. Tony smiled at her while she settled herself, turning onto his side and propping his head up on his palm while she pulled her knees up and smoothed her skirt over her thighs.

“Hi,” he greeted finally.

She took off her pink sunglasses and held them out to him with her head tipped to one side. Tony took them and worked them onto his face, wedging the earpieces under his helmet.

“Hi,” she said once he’d gotten the glasses settled on his face.

Tony liked the glasses and the way the pink tint softened everything. “You are going to have fun getting down from here when Sharon comes running back in her bunny slippers.”

“I’ll just fall off the side,” she said, waving one hand dismissively. “The Dream House is only a few feet away from the bed.”

“A few feet to a doll in cute heels can be a long way,” Tony pointed out, nudging one toe against her foot. She held it out for him to inspect – they were new heels, bright pink to match her glasses and her hair, with tiny white bows on the top. “They are very cute,” Tony praised.

“Thank you, Mr. Stark,” she said, and then nudged his faceplate up a little farther for him. “So, interesting mission?”

“I am _immune_ to interrogation,” Tony reminded her. “How’s your studying going?”

“Well, Sharon _did_ put her math book on top of the bookshelf,” she said, “It’s a little tough for a doll in cute heels to get to.”

Tony nudged her knee. “Says Ms. _I’ll just fall off the side_ ,” he snorted. “I’ll get the team to lower it down with the jump ropes. We can keep it behind the bookshelf – she won’t even notice that it’s gone.”

“You’re a dear,” Daisy said, leaning forward to press a kiss to his cheek. “How immune to interrogation are you feeling now?”

Grinning at her, Tony said, “Still pretty immune.”

“Well, can’t blame a doll for trying.” She winked one perfectly painted eye and tapped his knee with one hand. She opened her mouth again, but before she could say anything else, they heard the bathroom door open. Daisy levered herself up to her feet and shouted, “ _Incoming!_ ”

Tony tossed her the sunglasses, and then scrambled to the edge of the bed and helped Jan and Thor climb back up.

“See you later, Mr. Stark,” Daisy said. She blew him a kiss and then did a neat pirouette and tumbled off the edge of the bed. She bounced once on the carpet, rolled back up to her feet, and ran for the Dream House. Tony just barely glimpsed her dropping into her lawn chair before he got Rhodey over the side and they fell back into position, faceplates down, and sprawled where Sharon had left them.

“There,” Sharon was saying as she pushed the door opened and quietly closed it behind her. “All better now.” She was wearing her rubber ducky bath robe, her hair caught up in a purple towel, and the ears on her bunny slippers flopped with each step. She had Cap swaddled in a towel like a baby, only one begloved hand sticking out of the terry cloth.

Sharon set him down at Tony’s feet. He was soaked through, but the worst of the grime had been washed off and he smelled strongly of bubble gum body wash. While Sharon got dressed, Tony stared at Cap’s gleaming glass eyes, looking for any sign of awareness. Sometimes toys could be so very Still that it was hard to tell them apart from furniture, but most of the time one toy could recognize the awareness in another. Cap was either very good at being Still, or very dead.

Sharon was dressed and combing out her hair when Mom’s footsteps sounded on the stairs. Gasping, Sharon threw herself out of the chair and hurried to throw the towel over Cap’s staring eyes. She spun around when the door opened, belatedly snagging Thor off the bed and holding him in front of her like he could protect her from Mom’s curiosity.

“Sharon, honey, we’re going to go the Wests’ for dinner tonight. They’re having a bar-b-que, and Lisa wants you to come over and play. Put on your swimsuit and only bring _water proof_ toys. I don’t want another debacle with the tum-tum.”

“ _Tsum-tsum_ ,” Sharon corrected for the billionth time. “I just took a bath. I don’t want to go swimming.”

“You’ll want to go swimming as soon as you get there, and then we’ll have to come back to get your suit,” Mom said, putting one hand on her hip and hiking an eyebrow. “Just put it on, and if you don’t want to swim when you get there, you don’t have to.”

“ _Mom_ ,” Sharon tried to explain, “I don’t want to go _at all_.”

“Sharon. You like Lisa, and it was very nice of her to invite you. Get your suit.” She turned around, but then twisted back and pointed at the bed. “And get that wet towel off the bed. It’s going to be soaked by bedtime.”

Tony could see Sharon’s shoulders going back the way they did when she was doubling down for a fight, but she hesitated, head tipped to one side, and finally said, “Okay, Mom.”

His girl was so smart – she knew that if she picked a fight, Mom would grab the towel herself, and then Cap would be discovered and it would be back to the attic for him. And then it would be back to the attic for _them_ , except Sharon would probably go through the window to get Cap back, even though Dad had painted it shut, and who knew how long her toys would get shoved in the Raft and left alone in the garage.

Mom closed the door behind her and Sharon breathed out a huge sigh of relief. She tossed Thor back to the bed and tenderly pulled the folds of the damp towel away from the Cap doll. “You’re going to need a better hiding spot until you’re dry,” she said, biting her lip. She turned a brief circle and then decided, “Closet.”

Tony cursed under his breath as Cap was transported, towel and all, into the closet. He didn’t want Abomination or the dinosaurs to be the first thing Cap saw when he woke up. Tony just hoped that the toys had enough sense not to scare him too bad. Judging by the way he was made, he must have been _old_ , and waking up with a face-full of T-Rex breath would be enough to scar anyone for life.

“Okay, Iron Man,” Sharon said, digging her swimsuit out of the top drawer of the dresser, “You’re in charge. Make sure that no one picks on Cap while I’m gone, and teach him the rules, okay?” She shimmied into her suit, spinning in circles while she fought to get the second strap over her shoulder. It left a faintly red abrasion on her shoulder and upper arm that she ignored as she dug back into her dresser.

She pulled a sundress over her suit and then quickly tied her hair back while Mom started shouting at her to hurry up. “Who’s coming with me?” She put her hands on her hips and surveyed the bed carefully, before turning and grabbing Daisy and Sweetheart from their lounge chairs. She crawled back under the bed for her Barbie trunk and scooped out a handful of bright blue and pink fabric, along with the inflatable floaties. 

“Pool party,” she explained to the girls, and then rose up on her knees to grab Jan and Natasha. “Someone has to work security,” she said. “Wasp, Widow, you’re being hired as private security guards for their royal highnesses Daisy and Sweetheart, so you’ve got to be on the top of your game.”

“Sharon, come on!” Mom called.

“So bossy,” Sharon said, but she slid Natasha and Jan into her backpack with the Barbies and slung the pack over her shoulders. “Be nice to Cap!” she instructed the room at large, and then surprised Tony by snagging him off the bed and taking him to the closet. She laid him down next to Cap on a pile of blankets and patted him gently. “Take care of our new friend, okay?”

Tony would have told her that he was on the job, but there were Rules, so he just winked at her from the safety of his faceplate and watched her go. She waved at them from the door, and then quietly closed them into the darkness. Tony listened carefully for the bedroom door to open and close, and then the clatter of Mom and Sharon making their way out of the house.


	2. Chapter 2

Steve’s foot felt different – there was a tight, pulling sort of pressure along the edge of his boot. The last thing he remembered was Peggy stroking a hand down the back of his head. It had been so long since she’d played with him, and he’d felt a thrill of such joy. She’d kissed his forehead… and then set him in a box. Steve had been horrified and confused and alone. Everything else in the box was just _stuff._ Baseball cards, a blanket Grandma had made, a football that was already squishy and still losing air. He’d stayed awake for a while, waiting, hoping as the box was moved into a car, and the car drove for a while, and then the box was moved somewhere else. He hadn’t remembered Peggy mentioning moving, but she hadn’t talked to him in a long time by then.

He’d waited in the dark for his box to be unpacked, but eventually he’d gone Still. Awareness came back slowly – Steve was moved, briefly submerged in warm water, wrapped up in cloth, and then left in the dark. It happened this way sometimes. Old toys were mended and cleaned up, and then put in boxes and sent to the second-hand store or the hospital. When Steve had still be Active, he’d thought that it wasn’t such a bad thing, that at least those toys had a second chance at a home where they’d be loved and played with again. Swaddled in cloth and laying the dark, Steve just wanted Peggy back.

He heard a door close, and then another, and finally a quieter slam of a door further away. Slowly, a rustling noise filled the silence, a noise that Steve hadn’t heard in a long time – toys beginning to move. Steve kept himself stubbornly Still. He didn’t want to wake up to anyone other than Peggy, didn’t want to be in a strange room with strange toys and none of his friends.

“Hey, Cap,” an unfamiliar voice said into the silence. “The people are all gone. I know you’ve been alone for a long time, but you can wake up now.”

Steve felt like he was vibrating with the effort to stay Still, but he kept quiet. His arm was picked up, jostled, bent at his stitched elbow joint, and then tugged. He jerked automatically and heard a startled scrabble of motion in the darkness. Whoever had been tugging on him let go with an oath and fell backwards in a clatter of plastic.

Reluctantly, Steve sat up. He felt stiff, and he was soaked straight through to his stuffing. He felt around, and found himself seated on a sodden towel. After a few moments for his eyes to adjust, Steve realized that he wasn’t in a box anymore. Based on the feel of the area and the strip of light on the floor, he was in a closet. Steve climbed clumsily to his feet and stumbled down the hill of terry cloth. All around him, other figures moved hastily out his way. Steve couldn’t make out any of their shapes, but brushed against someone made of hard plastics. He tripped and fell against the door, panic mounting around him. He had no idea where he was, or who he was locked in the closet with, or how to get out. His soggy limbs were not up to the task of supporting him, and he collapsed down to his knees.

“Hey, hey, Cap, calm down. It’s okay!” the unfamiliar voice shouted.

Steve pressed back against the door – maybe it was one of those folding doors and it would open if he pushed hard enough. The door felt solid, but it abruptly disappeared from under his weight and he ended up flat on his face on the floor. He scrambled to his feet, wincing away from the bright sunlight – when was the last time he’d seen _sunlight_? There was a vague notion of toys all around him, but Steve’s head was spinning too fast to see anyone clearly. He fell twice trying to get out of the light and somewhere he could put his back to a wall and figure out what was going on.

“Give him some room! Stop crowding him!” the voice called.

Steve hit the ground again, rolled back up to his feet and ran head-first into a wall. He slapped both hands against the wall and turned around to put his back to it. He was in a corner where a stained wooden wall met a painted white wall, but he was missing all his weapons, and even his shield was nowhere to be found. Steve wedged his elbow into the corner and tried to stand upright so he looked like less of a target. He’d heard the horror stories of toys who’d been in other rooms, the way the resident toys could attack new toys, or try to hide them from the child.

There were a lot of them. Peggy hadn’t had this many toys when she was growing up. Steve counted a dozen shiny smooth plastic action figures, strange plush dolls shaped like tubes with faces, a panda toy that was three or four times Steve’s height, and _dinosaurs_. The action figure at the front of the group was red and gold and cast as some kind of robot with a slanted-eyed mean face. Behind him was his twin brother cast in silver and gray, and behind _him_ was some kind of warrior in a winged-helmet and strangely stiff red cloak.

Steve stared at the last closely. He had six round, silver circles on his armor – four above, and two below a golden belt.

“Thor?” Steve asked cautiously.

“The Captain knows of me!” Thor exclaimed, unintentionally – or not – smacking a large green troll on the arm. The troll backhanded Thor across the face, sending him flying.

Startled, Steve jerked forward with one hand reaching automatically for the shield, only to remember that his shield was missing. Clenching his hands into soggy fists, Steve continued doggedly forward anyway.

“Whoa whoa!” the robot said, holding his hands up and stepping into Steve’s path. “They’re just playing! They’re friends, most of the time. I swear. Hulk, Thor, knock it out off.”

“He started it,” the ogre – Hulk? He was familiar as well – grumbled, but he sat down roughly. A man with stiff, wavy black hair and a pair of glasses patted Hulk on one giant knee.

It clicked, finally. “Dr. Banner?” Steve asked. “You’re all… superheroes? Comic book heroes?”

The robot reached up to his face and pried part of his helmet up. Under his helmet was a plastic human face with a painted goatee and a friendly smile. Steve looked at him sideways, but he couldn’t quite place the streamlined, futuristic knight among the rest of the comic book superheroes.

“My name is Tony Stark.”

Steve blinked at him. “Iron Man?”

Grinning, Tony put his fists on his hips and gave Steve a roguish smile. “In the flesh! Well… in the plastic anyways,” he said, holding his arms away from his hips. “Welcome to Sharon’s room!”

Steve’s heart sank. He’d known that it was a useless hope, but part of him had wanted to believe that Peggy had just gotten some new toys and brought him out of his box, that he’d only been in some kind of storage while she got her room all put together, that no time at all had passed. Of course, he should have known better. Iron Man, Hulk, even Thor – they were shiny new, and far better constructed than any toy Steve had ever known. He couldn’t even see any seams on their legs, though the plastic hair and clothing seemed strange to him.

“I see,” Steve said finally. He stepped back until his shoulders hit the wall again and slid down it so his damp legs were stretched out in front of him. He felt very tired and very heavy all the sudden.

“Let’s give the Captain some space,” Dr. Banner suggested, shooing away all the little tube-face-plushies and the dinosaurs.

Iron Man remained, standing awkwardly a few feet away while the rest of the toys reluctantly shuffled off.

“Sharon has been looking for you for a long time,” Tony said finally. He lowered himself to the carpet in an impressive display of working joints, arms rotating and bracing out behind him, legs folding into the same cross-legged stance Peggy used to like. Steve could sit that way, but only if he had some help, and it took effort to stay that way.

“Happy I could help complete the collection,” Steve said finally. He tried to muster up a smile, or give some indication that he _was_ happy. For that matter, he tried to _feel_ happy. Steve was in a new room, with a new child, and Sharon was obviously a fan of superheroes, and these toys knew who he was, so Captain America must have become more popular while he was in the box.

“It’s not so bad in here,” Iron Man told him, scooting forward. “Sharon’s a great playmate. She’s really smart, and funny, and takes us on adventures all the time. You’ll love it.”

“My girl was like that,” Steve said finally. “She was the best.”

Tony was quiet for a minute, and then leaned forward and touched Steve’s boot. “Sorry you lost your girl.”

Steve did manage a smile then. “It happens to all of us eventually.”

Tony’s lips pulled into a crooked smile. “That’s the way of it,” he agreed. “You want a tour of the room?”

Steve let his breath out in a sigh and patted his legs. “Why not? I’m a little soggy, but I think I can manage the walk.”

“How’s your foot feel? Sharon got it all stitched up for you.” Tony beamed at him, obviously so proud of his girl – and what toy wouldn’t be?

Steve grabbed his ankle and pulled his foot up so he could examine it. The stiches were a bit thick, not like the neat little stitches from Grandma that had brought him to life, but they weren’t bad. Better, definitely, than having his stuffing hanging out. It was a good sign – kids who did things like patch up and wash an old toy like him would be less likely to mistreat their toys, or throw them away for the next New Thing.

“Good work,” Steve said, which only made Tony grin that much harder.

Iron Man jumped to his feet and held out a hand – fully articulated fingers, Steve noticed enviously – to help him. Steve took the help, but pulled away when Tony tried to pull Steve’s arm around his shoulders.

“I can manage,” Steve said firmly. Truthfully, his whole body felt shaky and soft, and he wasn’t completely sure that his legs were going to hold him up.

Tony shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

They moved out of the shadow of the stained-wood wall and Tony made an expansive gesture to encompass the room. “This is Sharon’s room!” he declared. “Sharon is ten. She’s in fourth grade, and she loves superheroes, and dinosaurs, and Barbie dolls. When she was younger, she loved bunnies, and Grandma hasn’t figured out yet that she’s outgrown them, so she still gets a bunny twice a year. Easter and her birthday,” he explained.

Steve looked up to follow the gesture of Tony’s hand to a hammock hanging over the bed. It was filled with stuffed animals who were just then starting to wriggle out of the net. A giant green tube-creature bounced half a dozen fluffy flop eared rabbits out of the hammock and ended up spilling them all out. They landed on the bed with various _ooafs!_ And _watch it, Hulk-tsum!_

“What are those?” Steve asked in an undertone, gesturing to one of the smaller tube-creatures.

Iron Man craned around to see what Steve was pointing out. “Ah! Those are Tsum Tsums. They’re new, cutesy versions of us.” He gestured to the other superheroes who were doing their best to pretend they weren’t closely following his and Iron Man’s conversation.

Steve craned his neck around to look at the rest of the room. The shapes were familiar – bed, chest of drawers, bookcase, desk – but everything was foreign and not quite right. Shiny and new and sharp edges where all of Peggy’s furniture had been carved wooden pieces with soft edges and painted flowers.

Iron Man’s arm landed around his shoulders, heavy and hard-edged. “You’ve been in storage for a long time, Cap,” he said cheerfully, “A lot has changed.”

“How long?” Steve asked softly.

He felt Iron Man’s shrug along the back of his shoulders, tugging at the fabric of his uniform. “Who knows, but you were in a dusty box that said ‘Peggy’s Stuff’ so it must have been a long time.”

Steve jolted. “Peggy’s stuff? So this is… is Sharon…?”

“Peggy is Sharon’s Aunt,” Tony supplied.

Well that wasn’t so bad at all – maybe not quite as good as being given to Peggy’s daughter, still in the same house with his girl, but Peggy would be bound to visit at some point. Aunts played with their nieces, didn’t they? It would be alright. Steve nodded and felt himself slowly relaxing. He’d see his girl again.

“She comes here often?” Steve asked hopefully. “Peggy?”

Tony’s expression was full of pity. “Sometimes,” he offered, though Steve could tell he was lying.

Steve could take a lot from a toy, but not pity. He hadn’t been made in a factory – he was homemade, and not quite perfect, and he’d been sneered at by toys who’d been mass-produced, or pitied by dolls who had real joints, or envied by dolls who had millions of twins. It had never mattered to Peggy, and it didn’t matter to him what other toys thought of his soft limbs. He shrugged out from under Iron Man’s arm and squished his way over to the shadow of the desk.

He was aware of the rustle of toys creeping closer, but at a soft, “Give him space, guys,” they backed off. Steve knew that he shouldn’t mope, that it was unbecoming of Captain America – even if he was just a doll – but he couldn’t help it. He was alone in a whole new room without any of his friends, and not even his girl to make it feel like home.

~*~

Steve watched the slashes of the sunshine creep across the carpet and listened to the commotion of a very active play room. There were dozens of toys of all shapes and sizes, action figures, and plush toys, and a giant pink dollhouse. It was an eclectic collection, but not unlike Peggy’s room had been. Peggy had all the dolls and stuffed animals that she’d been given by Mom and Dad and other family members, and the G.I. Joes she won off the boys at school, and buckets full of green army men. Her desk drawers had been filled with comic books, and she’d used the sewing lessons from school to make BDUs for her Barbies.

This Sharon must be a lot like her aunt. That was comforting at least.

The sunshine climbed up the wall, and then started to fade. A streetlight outside the widow came on with a hum that Steve could hear even over the ruckus of the toys’ roughhousing. If they’d been his friends, his Commandos, Steve would have stuck his head out and told them to be careful not to get hurt when they weren’t sure they would have time to dress any wounds. They weren’t his Commandos, so Steve just stayed where he was and let the carpet around him soak the water out of his stuffing.

It had been dark for close to an hour when they heard the door open downstairs and the clatter of people coming home. The room went silent and they all listened anxiously as the people got settled in downstairs, and then someone shouted, “ _Places everyone_!”

Steve thought about just staying where he was, but Iron Man darted under the desk and gestured for him to get up.

“Come on, Cap, you know the Rules,” Tony said hurriedly. He held a hand out for Steve and curled his fingers several times.

Steve glanced at the door, and then finally took Iron Man’s hand and let himself be tugged to his feet. It may have been a long time since he’d had to run for position, but his legs remembered. He understood that he didn’t have a heart, but he still felt like his pulse had kicked into overdrive as he followed Iron Man back to the closet and jumped back into his nest of terrycloth. The door closed behind them and Tony helped him get back into the folds of the towel before dropping down next to him.

The bedroom door opened while Steve was still trying to get his feet into the twist of the cloth, and he went Still. He wasn’t exactly in the right position, but people didn’t notice things like that often. He heard some shuffling and thumping, and then the closet door opened slowly. From his position, he could just barely see the top of the girl’s head as she crawled in.

“Hi, Cap,” she whispered. “I hope everyone was nice to you while I was gone.” She gently pulled the folds of the towel back and picked him up with both hands, cradling him like he was precious to her. “Sorry I had to go like that. Lisa is my friend, but she’s got _horrible_ timing.”

Sharon checked the stitches on his boot, and squished his stomach between her fingers. “You’re probably going to take all night to dry,” she huffed. “I would go put you in the dryer, but Mom would hear it turn on and then she would find you.”

Despite still being wet, Sharon held him to her chest and rustled around in the closet again. With his face pressed to her collarbone, Steve couldn’t see what she was doing, but Iron Man was there next to him again when he was set on the bed. Sharon moved around the room, opening dresser drawers and unpacking a backpack by the sound of the zipper opening and plastic clicking together. Iron Man was close enough to him to feel the presence of the other toy like body heat, but Steve’s neck couldn’t rotate when he was Still, so he was stuck staring at the ceiling while Iron Man stared at the side of his face.

Sharon appeared again, dressed in colorful flannel pajamas with an armful of toys. She arranged the toys on the pillow closest to the window and said goodnight to them one at a time – Jan, Natasha, Uhura, Thor, Rhodey, Bruce, Hulk, Clint, and Sam – and then squeezed an armful of tsum tsums to her chest in a hug and nestled them up with the action figures.

“Where did Vision and Spider Man go?” she asked, counting heads.

While she went off searching for her missing toys, Steve marveled at how complicated the sleeping arrangements were. It seemed like a bigger bed than Peggy had slept in, but it was still a lot of toys up on the pillow. In his time, he’d only ever shared pillow space with a stuffed animal or two, and the Commandos had teased him endlessly for it. He wondered if maybe his old friends were in a box like he’d been, stuffed up in an attic, accumulating dust. He wasn’t sure if he wanted them to be, because it meant maybe finding them again, or if he hoped they had gone on to lead happy lives in some other child’s playroom.

Vision and Spider Man were eventually located and added to the pillow. Sharon pulled a blanket up over them, and said, “Get some sleep everyone.”

“Sharon!” a woman’s voice called from outside the door – Mom, probably. “Sharon, honey, make sure you brush your teeth before going to bed.”

Sharon huffed out an annoyed noise, but climbed backwards off the bed and trooped to the door. Steve caught a glimpse of Mom in a yellow and white striped shirt and a pair of blue jeans before the door was closed again.

“You’ll get used to it,” Iron Man said in the ensuing silence.

Steve heard the rustle of toys getting comfortable on the pillow, but no one tried to get up. He turned to look at Iron Man inquisitively.

“Bedtime,” Tony explained. His helmet was down, so Steve couldn’t see his face, but it sounded like he was smiling. “She’ll get you a place on the pillow with everyone else.”

The sound of the bathroom light clicking off saved Steve from having to respond. All of the toys went Still and Sharon returned a moment later carrying a towel tucked to her body like she was smuggling it into the room. She closed the door very quietly and tip-toed her way back to the bed. Steve wondered what she was hiding in the towel, but when she shook it out, it was just a towel. She grabbed Steve and swaddled him up in the folds of it again.

“I don’t want you to get the bed all wet,” she explained in a whisper, “But I didn’t think it was very fair to make you stay in the closet either.”

Tucking Steve into the crook of her arm like an infant, Sharon turned the light off and then crawled under the covers. After some rustling and twisting, Steve ended up pressed to her stomach with Iron Man on top of his bundle of terry cloth.

After so long alone, it should have felt nice to have a kid again, toys around him, the soft sound of a child’s breathing. Steve mostly felt stifled, and somehow still lonely.

It was going to be a long night.

~*~

“Sorry, Cap,” Sharon explained in the morning while she was still rubbing sleep out of her eyes. “I can’t take you downstairs for breakfast, or Mom might see you. Our mission to retrieve you from the attic wasn’t exactly… er… sanctioned.” She gave him a devious smile that reminded Steve of Peggy and made his chest swell up with pride. Despite the fact that she’d barely moved in the night, her hair was somehow sticking up in a tangle on the right side of her head. She brushed it back with a careless hand and unwound Steve from the damp towel. He was nearly dry, and felt lighter than he had the day before.

Sharon kicked her way out of the tangle of bedding and took a minute to pull all the toys out from under the blankets. Most of them had fallen off the pillow in the night, and they ended up in a heap while she made a haphazard attempt at straightening the blankets. While Mom called her down for breakfast, she hurriedly got everyone at least upright, and then snagged a leggy dark-skinned doll in a tiny red dress with her hair swept gracefully up on top of her head.

“Come on, Uhura,” she said, “maybe we can get Mom to make us pancakes. Bye, guys!”

Everyone stayed Still for a few moments, and then toys started waking up, stretching and yawning. The closet door opened with some help from the Hulk, and a crowd of toys filed out onto the rug. The pink house opened at the hinge and three Barbies unlike anything Steve had ever seen walked out, straightening their hair and clothes. One of them had pink hair, and she waved up at the bed. Iron Man waved back.

“That’s Daisy Pop,” Iron Man explained. He pried the faceplate of his helmet up and gave Steve a warm smile. “She’s a math genius. The other two are Sweetheart, and Nikki. Sweetheart is a yoga instructor, and Nikki is a teacher.”

“Wow,” Steve said, impressed. “I wish those girls had been around for Peggy. She found her own way, but it would have been nice if she’d had toys like that. What’s yoga?”

“Like stretching and strength training all rolled up in one. She holds lessons while Sharon is at swim class, so you’ll see on Wednesday.”

Steve nodded and tried to think of something else to say. He felt the first stirrings of guilt for hiding himself away the day before. It wasn’t the best kind of first impression. Before he could come up with something, a woman with her hair in a cute bob sat down next to him and thrust her hand out. Her fingers weren’t articulate like Iron Man’s, but they were elegant and neatly formed. Steve couldn’t exactly throw stones, since his own fingers weren’t even separated.

“I’m Jan,” she said, beaming at him when he carefully took her hand in his comparatively giant paw. She shook firmly, and then leaned around Steve to see Iron Man. “You up for Operation Saturday Morning Cartoons?”

“You bet,” Iron Man agreed. He gave her a thumbs up, and then explained for Steve’s benefit, “On Saturdays, Mom lets Sharon eat in the living room and watch cartoons. We can see the TV from the top of the stairs, so we sneak out sometimes.”

Steve’s mouth fell open. “You _leave the room_? In the _middle of the day?_ ” Steve and the Commandos had gone on plenty of solo missions, but even they hadn’t been insane enough to sneak out of the room alone during the day, in the middle of summer, when Mom or Dad or Brother or the dog could happen upon them.

“We have a lookout,” Tony defended, but his smile was just as sly as Sharon’s had been, and he winked at Steve before climbing to his feet. “Operation Saturday Morning Cartoons is a go, people!” he called out.

The room erupted in cheers and toys started moving about with a purpose, everyone apparently knowing just what they had to do to make Operation Saturday Morning Cartoons a success. Steve boggled at all the activity, and couldn’t even protest when Jan slid her arm through his and urged him off the bed. The Hulk and another giant figure got the door open, shoving and snarling at each other the entire time, and then Spider Man poked his head out. He slid around the doorframe, and was gone for a few seconds before returning.

“Avengers Assemble,” he called softly.

There were some groans and a few of the toys lost interest, but all the superhero action figures cheered and headed for the door. Jan tugged Steve along. “You’ll like this,” she said, patting his arm and giving him a sweet smile. “It’s about us.”

Steve gave the door curious look. “Me?”

“Well,” she said, her mouth twisting slightly in a frown. “No, sorry. Captain America isn’t really… popular. Sharon hasn’t been able to find any merchandise on you, and she’s been looking for years. Sorry,” she repeated.

“It’s fine, I know I was never popular,” Steve reassured her. He put a hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh, casting a glance at the open door. “Why do you think I had to be handmade?”

“I thought maybe you were,” she said. Her smile came back, and she tossed him a wink, tapping his forearm with one finger. “And very well-made at that.”

If Steve could have blushed, he would have. She gave him a gentle tug and he reluctantly followed her through the door. These toys were crazy – walking out the door in the middle of the day when any person might look up and see them breaking all manner of Rules. There was a line of superhero action figures, Barbie Dolls, and a gaggle of green army men lined up at the bannister. Dr. Banner was sitting on the Hulk’s knee with Spiderman crouched on the giant’s shoulder. The rest of the toys were crowded around him, peering through the slats of the banister. Steve could just hear the noise of the TV under the chatter of people talking in another room. He hesitated again, but Jan gave him a solid push, and he ended up on his knees next to Iron Man.

“Things sure are different here,” Steve said softly, shifting around to sit down. Jan sat close to his side and wrapped her arm around his again, leaning on his shoulder so she could see around the bannister.

Iron Man had shoved his feet between two of the round slats and his arm wrapped around one of them. Steve shifted so he had a slat between his legs, and didn’t say anything about Iron Man’s precarious hold. He could just see the TV if he dipped his head down and to the left – and wow, wasn’t that a thing? Even from so far away, he could tell it was _big_ , and the colors were so bright. He’d thought Peggy’s mom’s sixteen-inch TV that came in color was impressive, but he couldn’t even guess how big the monstrosity in the living room had to be.

“How big is that?” Steve blurted out, surprised.

“Sshh,” Iron Man told him. “Just watch.”

“I heard Dad say it was sixty-five inches,” Jan whispered to him. “Mom got it for him last Christmas and it was all he could talk about for weeks.”

Steve couldn’t even clearly picture sixty-five inches. He tilted his head down and watched as the on-screen Iron Man flew through a cartoon city, shooting brilliant blasts of light from his hands. It was exciting, and flashy, and he watched with avid attention. What would it have been like to see his own character on the screen, fighting alongside Black Widow, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Thor, Jan, and the Hulk? It sounded like something out of a daydream – and he and Peggy had played through many of those daydreams together. The Captain America comic had only run during World War II and a few years afterwards, and Peggy had only been able to get her hands on half a dozen of the comics. They hadn’t had a lot of material to work with, but they’d dreamed up some amazing adventures together. Mostly it was missions with his Commandos – all GI Joe dolls – but every now and then, Peggy would dress up one Commandos and pretend he was Thor or Giant Man.

Steve got so caught up in memories that he nearly lost his stuffing when Spider Man urgently hissed, “Go Still!”

He didn’t even have time to look around for the threat. Instinct kicked in, and Steve slumped backwards. Spider Man tumbled off of Hulk’s shoulder in a clatter of plastic and the heavier toy landed on top of him. Steve stretched his consciousness as much as he could without moving and finally heard what must have set Spider Man off – keys turning in the lock on the front door. It opened just moments after they’d all gone Still, but Steve wasn’t at the right angle to see who it was before the door swung closed once more.

“I’m home!” a man called, setting something heavy just inside the door and dropping keys on a table.

“Daddy!” Sharon shrieked from the living room. The thunder of her footsteps made the floor beneath Steve shudder, and then she was laughing.

“Hey, kiddo!” Dad said, making that noise that adults did when they picked up kids who were just that much too heavy to be picked up. “Were you good for mom while I was gone?”

“Yup,” Sharon assured him.

 “For a given definition of good,” Mom added, but she sounded like she was smiling. “Why do you keep punishing yourself with these early morning flights?”

“Because I just can’t stay away from my girls any longer than I have to.” He made a few loud kissing noises, Sharon giggled some more, and then he said, “Run back to your cartoons, kiddo. Dad’s gotta take a shower.”

Steve tensed and felt the rest of the toys doing the same. They were out in the open, and Dad was going to be walking up the stairs any moment. They were in plain view of people and they couldn’t get up to move without being seen. They were going to have to stay where they were and hope that Dad thought Sharon had just left them out, without Sharon getting into trouble, or convincing her parents that they’d moved on their own.

“I’ve got your breakfast in the oven,” Mom said with another, softer kissy noise.

“I don’t deserve you,” Dad said. Their voices dropped for a moment, and then Steve heard Mom’s bare feet retreating back to the kitchen and Dad’s heavier footsteps on the stairs.

Steve just barely made out Dad’s legs and feet before he stepped on Hulk’s arm. There was a horrible crunch of plastic that made Steve cringe, and Dad yanked his foot back.

“Goddamnit!” he hissed. “ _Sharon!_ I told you not to leave your toys out on the stairs!”

“I didn’t!” Sharon called back up.

“If I trip on these things one more time, they’re all going in the trash!” he said, ignoring her, and leaned down to sweep them up in his hands. Steve ended up crushed to Dad’s belly with Jan smashed into his back and one of Hulk’s fists against his throat. Dad stepped around the bannister and shouldered Sharon’s bedroom door open. He chucked them on the bed, and returned for another handful.

“That girl has too much crap,” Dad growled ominously, but though he looked around for a few seconds, he finally made a huffy noise and walked away. The door thumped shut behind them.

All the toys stayed Still for several more seconds, and then a collective sigh of relief went around the room.

“That was close!” Jan said, crawling out from under Steve’s body and straightening her hair.

Steve rolled over. He’d been so overwhelmed when he’d woken up that he hadn’t felt much more than confusion, and sadness, and numbness. As the rest of the toys straightened themselves out and gave out sighs of relief, Steve felt himself getting _angry_. He sat up abruptly.

“That is why there are Rules!” he said, cutting one hand through the air. “We could have all been thrown away. Sharon might still get in trouble! Not to mention if Spider Man hadn’t heard the keys in time, Dad might have walked in and looked up to see us all looking down at him!”

“Cool it, Cap,” Iron Man said severely. He pried his faceplate up and frowned at Steve. “No one saw us, and since when do adults ever notice anything?”

“You’re reckless,” Steve said, climbing up to his feet. He balled his hands into fists at his side. “You’re reckless and you’re a bad example to the room, and you’re going to get someone thrown out some day.”

Tony’s mouth dropped open, and the rest of the toys fell silent and started to shift uncomfortably on the mattress. Up above them, dozens of plushy animals stared down at them. Tony stalked forward unsteadily over the comforter, climbing over the hill created by folds in the blanket. He pointed his fingers at Steve’s head. “Where the hell do you get off telling me anything? You got here _yesterday_ after spending who the hell knows how many years in a box!”

“Where do I get off?” Steve hissed. “I ran a room for over a decade before you were ever casted!”

“Right, and you obviously did such a wonderful job that you ended up in attic.”

A shocked silence followed Tony’s barb and even Tony himself looked stunned that he’d said it. His mouth firmed up and he crossed his arms over his chest. Steve would have imitated the gesture, but it was harder for him without working elbow joints. He kept his hands at his sides instead.

“Happens to all of us eventually,” he ground out. “At least I ended up in an attic and not a landfill. Which is where we _all_ might go if we get caught out in the hall again.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Tony said. “No toy has ever been thrown out in _my_ room, and no toy ever will. Feel free to go back to hiding under the desk.”

Jaw clenched and the threads of his hands creaking under the strain of his fists, Steve watched Tony turn and struggle his way back over the rumpled blankets to the edge of the bed. He jumped down, leaving Steve to face down the rest of the toys, all of them watching him with mixed expressions of disappointment, discomfort, and anger.

Turning, Steve hopped off the bottom of the bed and pointedly climbed onto the top of the desk rather than hiding underneath it.


	3. Chapter 3

Sharon spent most of the day out of the room. Normally, Tony missed her when she was gone, but it was probably for the best that they had the room to themselves. Captain America had turned out to be a real jerk. Tony had felt bad enough about them almost being caught, but he hadn’t needed it shoved in his face like he didn’t know how to run his room.  He’d meant to pull Peter aside and remind him that he was supposed to be on lookout duty and really needed to pay better attention, but after Captain America’s very public blow out, he couldn’t have what should have been a completely reasonable discussion with Peter without it seeming like he was assigning blame.

“That guy is a piece of work,” Tony muttered, kicking at a fold in the blanket.

“He wasn’t _wrong_ , exactly,” Rhodey pointed out. “But he shouldn’t have done it like that.”

Tony made a frustrated noise. “Who does he think he is, brand new toy in the room, and already throwing his weight around like he’d going to take over?”

Rhodey reached over and patted him on the knee. “You were the new toy in the room once, already throwing your weight around like you were going to take over. T-Rex still tells that story about you starting the coup.”

Twisting his helmet until it came off, Tony rubbed his hands over his face. “I was a little shit,” he agreed finally. “And mad at the world.”

“No one could blame you. After Pepper and everything.”

Tony sighed. Pepper had been his first girl. She’d been lovely and perfect, and just not interested in playing with superheroes. Tony had been a present from Great-Granny Mable, who’d never met Pepper and had gotten her mixed up with her cousin Virgil. Pepper had dutifully kept Tony on a shelf for months, and even played with him sometimes: tea parties with her other dolls, and storming castles to rescue princes. She’d given him to Sharon after they’d become friends at summer camp, and it had been the best thing, even though Tony still missed her sometimes.

“I guess we have to cut him some slack,” Tony said finally. “He did spend a lot of time alone in that box.”

“But, Tones? I’m on your side if it comes down to another coup. We’ll punch the stuffing out of him.”

Rhodey held a fist up with a crooked smile and Tony obligingly knocked their knuckles together. He appreciated his friend’s support, but the truth of the matter was that there was ultimately very little they could do if Sharon decided to adopt Cap as her new favorite. Tony might be able to maintain control of the room while she was away, but it was a tough thing to do when a toy didn’t have the child’s favor. Tony wasn’t even sure he’d want to keep control of the room if he wasn’t Sharon’s favorite anymore. It wasn’t always easy to be the one keeping all the other toys happy and calm, reassuring them every birthday and Christmas that they weren’t going to be replaced. Maybe it would be nice to be able to sit back and hang out with the girls at the Dreamhouse, and let Steve do the hard work.

“It’s not going to come to that,” Tony decided. “And I don’t want this turning into a mess with the other toys.” He climbed to his feet and brushed his hands off on his thighs. Tony knew what it was like to be the new toy in the room, and to be a hand-me-down. He understood the uncertainty of having been unwanted. Cap just needed some time to realize that Sharon wasn’t going to throw him away, and Tony knew what he was doing, and it would be fine.

He navigated the hills and valleys of Sharon’s unmade bed down to the foot. He could make nice, shake hands, all of that. Cap couldn’t be that bad if Sharon admired him so much. Maybe they could even be friends. Untangling himself from the dangly fringe of the knitted blanket, Tony climbed onto the footboard. The last time he’d checked, Steve had been on the desk.

Tony stopped, balanced on the ledge of the footboard.  Cap was seated on Sharon’s pile of textbooks, surrounded by adoring tsum tsums, a raptor’s head in his lap, and Natasha, Jan, and Peter sitting around him. Even as Tony watched, a troop of green army men made their way up the desk, using the partially opened drawers as steps.

Jan noticed him and waved. “Tony, come over here. Steve is telling us about the adventures he used to go on with the Commandos.”

“Holding court, Cap?” Tony asked, putting one hand on the metal column of the footboard to steady himself.

Steve glared at him, his hand falling still where it had been petting the raptor. She made a protesting noise and butted her head into his arm. When he didn’t immediately resume petting, she closed her mouth around his arm and shook.

“Stop that, Blue,” Tony said, clapping to get her attention. She looked at him, but pointedly kept her teeth right where they were. Tony pointed at her. “No biting! We’ve talked about this before.”

“She’s not hurting me,” Steve said, but he used his other hand to gently pry her mouth open and patted her on the head.

“That doesn’t mean she’s allowed to just bite toys,” Tony said sharply. “You can’t let her get away with that.”

“You’re all made of plastic,” Steve pointed out. “And her teeth are soft rubber. She couldn’t hurt any of us if she tried.”

Blue made a rumbling, smug noise and pointedly stuck her tongue out. She crawled closer to Steve, knocking her head into his chest and displacing the Falcon tsum tsum that had been clinging to his knee. There was a chorus of tsum tsum complaints and before Tony could say a word, Steve, Nat, and Jan were all mobbed with tsum tsums, Blue snarling and snapping in response.

Rhodey climbed up next to him and sat on the footboard. He pulled his helmet off. “Oh, boy.”

Tony could only shake his head. He’d been through a room war before, when Pepper had started collecting Beanie Babies and taking less interest in her dolls. It hadn’t been pretty, and he’d never found one of the Barbies. He suspected that she’d ended up in the trash on the collection day. Pepper had been upset for days.

“This is not going to be good,” Tony said, watching the growing brawl. For the moment, it looked like they were having fun, but that could change in a heartbeat. The rest of the toys were watching curiously around the room, eyes sliding between the pile of tsum tsums and Tony where he stood uselessly on the footboard. Tony turned away from the mess on the desk, but made sure to give Magneto and his clutch of villains a sharp look. He didn’t want them getting any ideas while the room was divided.

Magneto waved at him pleasantly and went back to talking to his cronies.

“Great,” Tony muttered. “Just what we need. A two-front room war.”

“It’s not going to come to that,” Rhodey said, slinging an arm around Tony’s shoulders. “Magneto wouldn’t know what to do with the room if he had it. He just likes making trouble.”

“Heads up!” Daisy called from the door before Tony could come up with a response. “Sharon’s back from the park!”

Tony started back to his place on the bed, but realized that the tsum tsum pile on the desk wasn’t breaking up. He could hear Sharon and Mom at the front door, sorting through bags and putting keys down. Sharon might stay downstairs for lunch, but it was just as likely that she’d come running as soon as she got her backpack off.

“Hey!” Tony shouted at the toys still wrestling on the desk. “Break it up! Sharon’s home!”

“I got it, Iron Man!” Sam called, sailing down from the bookshelf to land on the desk. He started shoving tsum tsums away, and grabbed Blue around the chest to drag her off of Cap. “All of you, back to your places!”

He finally seemed to get through to them, and tsum tsums started bailing off the desk in squeaks of dismay. Natasha and Jan leapt from the desk to the footboard, and Tony helped haul them over the edge to the bed. Cap jumped across next and nearly fell, but Rhodey grabbed him by the harness stitched carefully over his chest and shoulders, and pulled him up.

Sharon’s steps boomed on the stairs. They didn’t have time to get back to their places near the pillow and dropped where they were. Steve landed next to him and Rhodey ended up splayed across them. Sharon flung the door open and then slammed it behind her.

“ _Ooooooooooooooo!_ ” she shrieked, throwing herself onto the bed and rolling over to shout into her pillow.

Tony couldn’t see her from where he was on the bed. He waited helplessly for her to tell them what had gone wrong at the park. Finally, she sat up and yanked at the blankets until she found her toys. She grabbed Tony – helmetless, and not where she’d left him – and twisted his limbs around until he could sit on her knee.

“Where’s your helmet?” she asked, frowning, and then started feeling around the bed. Tony wanted to ask her what was wrong, but she seemed to read his mind, and explained, “My stupid cousin Kyle is going to be here tomorrow.”

Uh-oh. Without his faceplate to shield his expression, he couldn’t even frown. Kyle was bad news – being a boy’s toy was always a bit rough, but Kyle went through action figures like tissues, and his parents just went out and bought him new ones when he lost or broke his toys. Tony had already met three Batmans and four Supermans during Kyle’s visits. Sharon found Tony’s helmet underneath her butt and fiddled with it, glaring hard into the middle distance.  Her mouth got all scrunched up when she was angry and her eyebrows made deep furrows over her nose. It was pretty cute, though Tony didn’t think she would appreciate that very much.

“He’s stupid, and I hate him,” Sharon continued, kicking at the blankets. Her rustling around knocked Cap to the floor and she leaned over to pick him up, squishing Tony between her thigh and stomach in the process. Cap joined him on her lap. “He’s a bully and he doesn’t even like Iron Man! And he thinks Batman is _so special_. As if Batman could ever beat the Hulk! He’s not even special, he’s just moody and… and… flounces around in a cape!” She snorted contemptuously, and then carefully put Tony’s helmet back on and straightened it out.

“Mom says I have to clean my room and he’s going to be here _all day_ tomorrow.”

Just what Tony needed – unhappy kids fighting all day while the room was already a mess of tension. He would have patted her hand if it weren’t for the Rules. She patted him instead and set him back down on the bed.

Sharon perked up abruptly. “Oh, Cap, I made you something!” She dug into her pocket and came out with a round piece of wood that just fit in her palm. Tony watched curiously as she turned it over to show Steve. It was the shield, carefully painted in what looked like glitter nail polish with a silver star sticker in the middle. She picked up Steve’s arm and tied the shield to it with a piece of yellow yarn glued to the back.

“There,” she said proudly. “Now you’ll be able to fight off Kyle’s stupid toys.”

~*~

After Sharon was dead asleep, Tony poked at Steve’s side. “Hey, wake up.”

He felt the stirring of Steve’s consciousness beside him, and then the subtle shift in the air of Steve waking up. He turned his head slightly and frowned at Tony. “You’re not supposed to be talking.”

“She’s asleep,” Tony said dismissively. “I know you’ve been in a box for a while, but you need to stop inciting conflict with my toys.”

Steve hiked one stitched eyebrow at him. “I’m not inciting conflict,” he whispered, obviously annoyed.

“You started shouting at me in the middle of the room, and you let Blue sit there and chew on you, even after I told her to stop.”

“She wasn’t hurting anything,” Steve insisted. “Her teeth bend when she closes her mouth for goodness’ sake!”

“That doesn’t mean she can just wander around and bite other toys! Because T-Rex’ teeth _don’t_ bend, and if Blue is allowed to bite anything she wants, how are we supposed to tell T-Rex that she can’t?” Tony prodded at Steve again and pointed vaguely toward the closet where the dinosaurs and most of the toys slept.

Steve at least had the decency to look contrite. “Alright, I see what you mean. But we shouldn’t have been out on that landing today, and I’m not going to apologize for that. You heard Dad – he said if any of us get left out again, we’re getting thrown away. That’s bad enough when it’s the kid’s fault, but do you really want to responsible for some innocent toy going to the trash just because you wanted to see a cartoon?”

It was a struggle to remember to stay Still. Tony clenched his jaw. “No toy in this room has been thrown away for as long as I’ve been here. Mom and Dad say that at least once a week, and the worst that ever happens is some of us get stuck in a box in the garage in Dad’s raft.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Steve insisted gravely. “Trust me, I know.”

“Not here. Not in Sharon’s room. You’ve never seen a kid love their toys like she does. She won’t even let Mom take away toys she hasn’t played with in years because she doesn’t want to hurt their feelings. It won’t happen here.”

Steve shook his head slightly, but stopped when Sharon shifted in her sleep. They both went Still while she twisted in the sheets, waiting for her to get settled again. Tony ended up half on top of Captain America, their faces separated only by the faceplate. He was very glad Sharon had stopped taking him out of it for bed time.

“It can happen anywhere,” Steve said once Sharon’s breath had deepened once more. “None of us are ever safe.”

~*~

Tony had dubbed the day Operation Survive Kyle, but he didn’t have the chance to fill the rest of the room in on his brilliant plan – which mostly involved hiding if it looked like Kyle was going to get the chance to be alone with them. He’d run off with some of Sharon’s army men and legos once, and they’d never been returned. The small tsums were especially vulnerable since they were easy to fit in pockets.

Sharon stayed in bed until Mom shouted at her to come down for breakfast, and she took Tony with her down to the table, so Rhodey would have to fill everyone in on the plan. Hopefully no Rule breaking would be necessary, but considering the tension in the room, Tony wasn’t above toys sneaking out of a moving backpack to avoid being stolen.

“No Uhura this morning?” Mom asked as Sharon slouched into the room with Tony pressed to her chest.

Tony couldn’t see her face, but he could clearly hear the sullenness in Sharon’s voice as she _humphed out_ , “Iron Man’s turn.”

“At least you’re fair,” Mom said, apparently not noticing how upset her daughter was, or just not responding. “Is your room all cleaned up? Your uncle and cousin will be here in about an hour.”

Sharon made an unhappy noise and, safe behind his faceplate, Tony silently gagged. “Is he gonna stay the night?” Sharon asked.

“No, not this time. Uncle Joe just has to go over some business with daddy this afternoon. Maybe next time you two can have a sleepover.”

“Good. I don’t want him to sleep over,” Sharon said. She arranged Tony on the placemat next to her bowl of cereal, carefully folding his legs so he would sit upright on his own.

“I thought you liked Kyle? You both like superheroes, and last time you played all day.”

“ _Mom_ ,” Sharon said, aghast, “He likes _Batman_.”

“Heaven forbid,” Mom muttered, but she just brought the milk over to the table and set it down at Sharon’s elbow.

Tony winced as Sharon got up to her knees on the chair to pour the milk. He loved his girl, but pouring her own milk was not one of her strong points. She managed to hug the jug to her chest and tilted forward with it, getting most of it in the bowl, but splashing a generous amount in Tony’s lap.

“Oops,” Sharon said. She put the jug down and climbed half onto the table to get a napkin to wipe the milk up.

“Give him here,” Mom ordered, and lifted Tony right off the table. Tony hated being picked up without Sharon’s permission. He hated being picked up by anyone but Sharon at all, but he especially hated it without her permission. If only it weren’t for the Rules, he would have bitten Mom’s hand.

“We don’t need another spoiled milk fiasco,” Mom explained, dunking Tony right under the faucet, and then leaving him on a dish towel to dry. Great – not only did he have Operation Survive Kyle to worry about, but wet joints on top of it. The doorbell rang and Mom made a huffy noise. “Always early,” she complained on her way out of the kitchen.

Sharon climbed out of her chair and grabbed Tony from the counter as soon as Mom was out of range, towel and all, and brought him back to the table. She got back into the high chair and set him in her lap with the towel folded around her so she could eat. From the entryway came the clatter and chatter of people entering a home, Uncle Joe’s _sorry for being so early_ , and Mom telling him _not a problem at all,_ and _Hi, Kyle, Sharon’s in the kitchen._

Tony felt Sharon’s wince, and she squished down in the chair so Tony was trapped between her belly and thighs. It couldn’t have been comfortable for her, but she stayed hunched over him as Kyle’s stomping footsteps heralded his approach.

“Stupid Kyle,” Sharon muttered.

“If it isn’t Miss Pigtails,” Kyle said as he stomped into the kitchen. He made obnoxious _oink, oink_ noises and Sharon threw something at him. He laughed at her.

“I don’t _have_ pigtails anymore, stupid,” Sharon told him acidly. “And your feet are like clown feet.”

“At least I don’t have _pigtails_ ,” Kyle shot back. Safely hidden, Tony rolled his eyes. He couldn’t help a tiny chuckle that was stifled by Sharon’s t-shirt. If he was going to keep a mental tally, his girl was already up by one.

“Nine in the morning and you two are already at it?” Uncle Joe said, chuckling like it was cute. “At least wait until noon before any blood starts flying.”

“Do you want some cereal, Kyle?” Mom asked, already getting a bowl down.

“We had McDonald’s on the way in,” Uncle Joe said, and ignored Mom when she chastised him about feeding Kyle junk food and grease.

Sharon continued slurping up her cereal, finally pulling Tony up and putting him back on the table. Kyle immediately started laughing, that annoying braying sound he made.

“Is that your _baby doll_?” he asked.

Before Sharon could say anything, Uncle Joe reached over and smacked him across the back of his head. Tony winced as Kyle ducked down and rubbed the back of his head. He plopped down in a chair at the center island and glared vaguely in Tony’s direction. Tony wished Sharon would move him away – he didn’t want to be Kyle’s target if he decided to lash out, but Sharon left Tony where he was and hurried through her cereal. Once she’d finished the last bite, she shoved her bowl away, snagged Tony by one leg, and ran out of the room. Mom yelled after them to pick up her dishes, but Sharon ignored her and hurried up the stairs.

“Stupid boys!” Sharon hissed once the bedroom door was closed. “I haven’t had pigtails since I was like… seven!”

Tony ended up on the bed, and Sharon paced a few angry circles around the rug before plopping down to sit cross-legged in the middle of the city map. Tony wished he could comfort her, and maybe if they had some time for her to play on her own for a while, she would cool down. Tony doubted she had that kind of time, and almost before he finished the thought, Mom pushed the door open and leaned in the doorway.

“Your cousin is just cranky from the drive, Sharon. Why don’t you get dressed and come back downstairs. You and Kyle can watch some cartoons for a while.”

“Do I _have to_?” Sharon whined.

“He’s your cousin. There’s no need for you to be rude. He’ll only be here for the day, so you can get dressed and come downstairs. Make your bed first.” Mom had that tone in her voice that meant there was not going to be any arguing, and sure enough, she shut the door before Sharon could say anything else.

Sharon had a few choice things to say once the door had been closed and Mom had walked away. Tony was privately impressed at the range of her cursing – she’d obviously picked some new words up at school that she hadn’t been angry enough yet to use. Sharon stayed on the carpet for another minute before getting to her knees and roughly opening a dresser drawer. She continued to mutter under her breath as she pulled out a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with Spider Gwen on the front and a web pattern covering one side. Kyle would probably hate it, and that seemed to give Sharon a minute of happiness before she was back to shoving things around.

Tony ended up on the floor with the rest of the Avengers as Sharon tugged her blankets back into place. She took the time to carefully arrange them so they were all sitting up against the wall and then stood back and put her fists on her hips.

“Today is going to be tough,” she told them. “The enemy is already in our stronghold, and we have to treat him like a friend, all because _his_ dad and my dad are brothers. I know,” she said, holding her hand up as if one of them had spoken aloud, “it’s stupid. But that’s what Mom says we have to do. We’re on a diplomatic mission, people, so we have to play nice. The Barbies are going to need to stay under the bed, because Kyle will try to pull their heads off or be creepy with their clothes, and the army men will have to stay in the closet so they don’t get stolen. Mom keeps saying that Kyle didn’t steal my old army men, but I think we all know the truth. Everyone needs to stay on their guard.”

She crossed her arms behind her back and marched back-and-forth in front of the bed. “Now, he’ll probably have some DC toys with him, because he’s horrible like that, and not even Wonder Woman. I know Batman is awful, but you all will just need to try to be nice to him, and not make fun of his stupid cape. No offense, Thor and Vision. You guys have cool capes.”

Sharon drew in a deep breath and pushed her hair out of her face. “Everyone good with the plan? Okay. Let’s do this.”

She went around the room quickly picking toys up. The Barbies were closed into their house and pushed under the bed, along with a pair of American Girl dolls. The army men were all scooped into their bucket, and went into the closet along with the few stuffed animals that weren’t already in the hammock. She looked around the room again for anything that might be out of place, and then threw the tsum tsums up into the hammock one at a time. She squared her shoulders and made a very determined face at the door.

“It’s only one day,” she said to herself, and then marched out of the room like she was off to her own execution.

“I take it things didn’t go so well at breakfast,” Natasha said as soon as Sharon’s footsteps hit the bottom of the stairs.

Tony pried his faceplate up and shook his legs out, trying to get the water out of his knees. “You can say that. Kyle is just as charming as ever, and Uncle Joe is still a huge jerk.”

“Lovely,” Rhodey grumbled.

“Today _is_ going to be rough,” Peter said. He flopped over dramatically to spread his arms out on the comforter. “Last time Kyle was here, Hal dunked me in the toilet.”

“Like kid like toy,” Tony said. He managed to get a handful of the comforter up so he could wipe at the water still trickling out of his knees.

Rhodey poked him. “What happened to you?”

“Milk.” It was the only explanation necessary. Most of them had been subjected to a milk bath at least once. Sweetheart had ended up sitting in a bowl of cereal in her swimming suit once. Mom eventually had to throw the swimming suit away after the milk soured and made the whole room stink.

“Any idea how long we have before they’re back up here?” Steve asked from the other side of the superhero lineup.

Tony shrugged. “Who knows? Mom said they could watch cartoons for a while, but they could get bored at any time. They don’t usually agree on what to watch, so that means they get kicked out of the living room in a hurry.”

He had barely finished the thought aloud when there was a stampede of heavy footsteps on the stairs. Tony reached over to help Peter up, and they all went Still just as the door pushed open. Sharon came in first with Kyle on her heels. She stood by the open door with her arms crossed over her chest and glared while Kyle sneered at her room.

“Still playing with those lame superheroes?” Kyle asked, dropping his backpack negligently on the floor and reaching across the bed to grab Thor.

Sharon shot across the room and grabbed Thor out of Kyle’s hand. “Leave him alone. _Your_ stupid superheroes are lame.”

“Whatever,” Kyle said. He checked his shoulder into hers as he pushed past her. “Let’s go watch TV. You got any video games?”

Thor went back into his place on the bed, and then Sharon followed Kyle out the door, closing it behind them. There was silence in the room for several minutes while they all waited for the sound of the TV turning on. The tension in the air was palpable as they all processed the whirlwind of Kyle’s quick entry and departure.

“This is going to be a fun day,” Bruce muttered.

Tony finally stood and crossed the expanse of the comforter to the edge of the bed. After a moment, Steve joined him. He was a bulky presence at Tony’s side, but Tony didn’t mind it quite so much when the zipper on the backpack creaked open and Batman’s pointy head appeared between the teeth. He reached up to grasp the edges of the zipper and pulled himself through. He looked around the room, and then saw them up on the bed.

“Stark,” he grumbled.

Tony crossed his arms over his chest. “Batsy.”

“Don’t be rude,” a voice called from inside the pack, and another pair of hands appeared on the zipper. Superman’s molded plastic hair appeared at Batman’s elbow, and then the man himself climbed out of the opening and balanced on the top. “Hello!” he called up to the bed with a wave. “I’m told it’s been a while.”

“You’re told?” Tony said. He shifted his weight to his other hip and guessed, “You’re a replacement for the last Superman who was here?”

Superman’s expression twisted into resigned amusement, obviously some kind of gallows humor. “I believe there was one other before me.”

“I am _so_ glad I’m not that kid’s toy,” Peter whispered as he stepped up to the edge of the bed and crouched down at Tony’s side.

“You and me both,” Tony muttered.

“Don’t be rude,” Steve said, apparently not even aware of echoing Superman’s words. “Welcome to Sharon’s room.”

The two toys gave them speculative looks, and then Batman asked, “Who’re you supposed to be?”

Steve actually straightened up, chest puffing out like he was reporting for duty. Tony avoided smacking his own forehead by reaching up to his take his helmet off while Steve introduced himself.

“Never heard of you,” Batman said. Superman elbowed him in the side, and they bickered quietly for several seconds. Mostly Batman sulked and Superman made imploring gestures. Under their feet, more voices could be heard from what looked like cramped quarters. At one point, someone shoved at Batman hard enough that he almost tumbled off the pack. Batman aimed a kick at the perpetrator, and Superman leaned over to talk into the opening.

“Anyone want to play that game where we try to guess what they’re saying?” Jan asked. She crouched down and then swung her legs over the side of the bed. The rest of the Avengers filed forward and arranged themselves at the edge of the bed to watch the show.

Tony couldn’t imagine what it would be like in Kyle’s room. It was strange that he went through toys so quickly when they always looked like they were in good shape for visits. It didn’t seem like he was torturing them, just managed to lose them a lot. At least Tony hoped he was just losing them. Batman finally jumped down from the pack, and Superman swung himself around so he was out of the way of the opening. Flash, Green Lantern, the Arrow, and Robin climbed out and tumbled down to the floor. They walked around stretching as if they had muscles to get sore.

Having strange toys in the room was always nerve wracking. Some kids would exchange toys, or – like Kyle – take toys, or sometimes toys would be left behind. It almost always changed the dynamic of the room, and even if all the correct toys went home with the correct kids, the room would be in turmoil for at least a few days. Normally, the toys from the closet would be creeping out by now, but Sharon had ordered them to stay put. Tony fleetingly wished that he’d been among the ‘hide’ group.

“Alright, everyone,” Tony said, turning away from the intruders to face his toys. “We all know what Kyle is like, so be vigilant. If you have to bend the Rules a little to stay in the room, then you do that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hal called up.

Tony twisted to look at him over one shoulder. “Hey, I’m sure you guys don’t want any of us coming home with you any more than we would like to be toynapped, so can it.”

“There’s no need to insult their kid,” Steve said.

“You can it, too,” Tony snapped without thinking. At Steve narrowed eyes, he sighed and put his hand over his face. “You haven’t met this kid yet, and accidents happen,” he allowed grudgingly.

He heard a flurry of noise and protests from the toys on the floor, but before anyone could say anything, Superman called out, “Incoming!”

Arguments put aside for the time being, they all rushed back to their places. Peter tripped on one of the buttons on the comforter, and Tony stopped to scoop him up. He heard the zipper closing on the backpack just as he dropped against the wall and arranged his hands in his lap. The bedroom door opened again, and Kyle crashed into the room and straight to his knees beside his backpack. He unzipped it and dumped the toys onto the carpet along with a hand-held game system and a flurry of crumbs. Tony winced as the bits of what looked like crackers or cookies went flying everywhere. Sharon came in a moment later, looking aggrieved, and stood unhappily by the door with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Look,” Kyle said, grabbing Batman and twisting to show him to Sharon. “This is a _real_ superhero.”

“He’s just a grumpy old man with lots of gadgets,” Sharon said.

“ _Iron Man_ is a grumpy old man with lots of gadgets,” Kyle shot back.

Sharon gasped. “He is _not_!”

“Is _so_!”

Tony stifled a laugh. It was going to be a long day.

~*~

The kids had been fighting all day. Tony had been thrown into a wall at one point, and Sharon had been forced to stand bodily in front of the closet door and shout for Mom to keep Kyle away from the rest of her toys. Mom had brought them lunch in the room, which had only compounded the issues with the crumbs all over the carpet, and Dad had come upstairs twice to tell them to _knock it off and be quiet_. The third time one of the adults came upstairs to yell at them, they ended up being bundled up and sent over to play in the Wests’ swimming pool. The front door slammed and they heard the kids’ shouting as they argued their way across the street.

Hal sat up, twisted his legs back around and picked up the stub of a half-eaten baby carrot. He threw it straight at Hulk’s head. “You guys are jerks.”

“Oh boy,” Rhodey said, putting a hand to his faceplate.

Bellowing, the Hulk launched himself at the Green Lantern with Thor following quick on his heels. The Flash tried to intervene and ended up being knocked half-way across the room by a swing from Thor. Steve dropped down from the bed and held his shield up just in time to deflect an eraser thrown at Tony’s head. He gave the shield a fond pat and adjusted the yellow yarn on the back.

“We cannot let this get out of hand,” Tony said, ducking when the carrot piece went flying again.

“I don’t see how we’re going to be able to stop it at this point,” Steve answered. He pulled Tony out of the way of a flying Thor, and they both ducked as Natasha launched into the fray with her rubber knives out. He led Tony to the base of the bedframe and they crouched down to use it as cover. Hal and Peter were in a wrestling match over by the dresser, and Jan and Nat had ganged up on Batman, who was looking very unhappy to be involved at all.

“We need to get the closet open and get reinforcements,” Steve said, pointing to where Kyle’s discarded backpack was keeping the toys inside from opening the door.

“We already outnumber them,” Tony pointed out. Sam took that moment to glide off the bed and ended up rolling into a ball of flailing plastic limbs with Peter and Hal. Barry immediately jumped on the dog pile and started tugging Sam’s wing backward. Peter kicked at him uselessly from the bottom of the pile and Sam tried to twist to alleviate the pressure. It looked like he was going to pull the wing right off.

Tony winced. “Closet it is.”

He waved a hand, and together he and Steve darted from the cover of the bedframe to the shadow of the desk. They had to dodge around the legs of the chair, and Steve kept to Tony’s left to fend off the random projectiles. Leaving the desk, they slid around the dresser. Tony pulled Steve out of the way as Clint went stumbling backwards from his fight with Oliver. Clint hit the dresser, cursed, and dove back in. He and Oliver were using their bows like clubs as they chased each other around the carpet.

“We’re going to have to get that bag out of the way enough for Abomination to push the door open. You pull and I’ll push?” Steve suggested as they ran from the dresser to the bookcase.

“You’re plush and I’m plastic,” Tony pointed out. “You pull and I’ll push.”

“Have it your way,” Steve said amiably. He jumped up to grab one of the straps and let his weight drag it back to the floor.

Tony got in between the pack and the wall. He knocked on the door and heard a chorus of shouting in reply. “You guys be ready to push!” he called. Normally he wouldn’t encourage the toys to leave the closet when Sharon was trying to keep them hidden, but if they needed a rampaging t-rex to keep Sam from being de-winged, a rampaging t-rex was what they’d get. Tony braced his back against the pack, got his feet up on the wall and started shoving backwards while Steve pulled.

The backpack moved so suddenly that Tony ended up flat on his back with an _oof_ of surprise.

Steve peered around the pack with a crooked smile. “I’m stronger than I look,” he said, offering Tony a hand up.

Tony knocked on the door again and it immediate clicked opened. Abomination appeared in the crack, already looking angry, with a dozen other toys behind them. Tony wedged himself into the space between the door and the frame and helped Abomination shove the door open enough for the toys to escape. Abomination pushed Tony out of the way so he could get into the room, and Tony curled up to protect himself as the rest of the toys started a stampede.

He felt a plushy hand curling around his arm, and then Tony was pulled out from the path of the dinosaurs. Two hundred army men marched out after them, green, blue, and yellow, and then the giant panda loomed in the darkness.

“Think this is maybe overkill?” Tony asked, boggling as all of Sharon’s toys joined the fight.

“They’re defending their room,” Steve answered. He turned to Tony with a brilliant smile stretched across his fabric face, and then hoisted his shield. “We aren’t going to let them have all the fun, are we?”

~*~

As the shadows got longer across the room, the fighting finally wound down. Oliver and Clint had taken a perch up on the desk and occasionally threw things at toys below, Batman had retreated back to the backpack and could be heard arguing with Superman over whether it was the Mobile Batcave or Fortress of Solitude, and which one of them needed to vacate the premises. The Barbies had been rescued from their Dreamhouse under the bed, and were doing yoga with an eagerly attentive Robin and all three raptors trying to follow along. Their tiny front legs weren’t helping them much, and they mostly ended up mashing their faces into the rug.

“What a day,” Tony said. He and Steve were up on the bookcase overlooking the room. Barry had attracted a gaggle of tsum tsums, and Hal was still sulking by the dresser, but he had Bruce and Uhura for company, and a guy could do worse.

“Not a bad day,” Steve said after a moment of looking around the room. He had a soft, pleased smile on his face, and he was relaxed like he hadn’t been since waking up.

Tony looked him over, and then tilted his head. “Do you have a skeleton?” he asked finally, realizing that Steve’s posture wasn’t just owed to having a stick up his ass.

Steve laughed. “Wire frame,” he explained, tapping one fist on his chest. “Grandma wanted to make sure I could stand up on my own. Didn’t really work,” he said with a shrug of his padded shoulders, “but Peggy never seemed to mind.”

“You must miss her a lot.”

Steve shrugged again, but then nodded. “I do, but Sharon’s great. I’m lucky to get a second life. Not all toys do.”

Tony nodded and swung his legs idly against the books on the shelves below. “Sorry,” he blurted out. “About… you know. Yesterday.”

Steve was quiet for a moment, but then reached over and patted Tony’s hand. “Me too.”

Before their comfortable silence could turn awkward, they heard the clear bickering of their kids returning. Multiple warnings went up around the room, and Tony hopped straight to the floor to help the girls get back into their house under the bed, while Steve went the other direction to help the rest of the toys get into the closet.

The only benefit of fighting kids was that they rarely remembered exactly where their toys had been when they’d left. Tony ended up dropping Still half under the bed, and he clocked at least three others who were out of place. Kyle stomped in, bringing the scent of the pool with him, and started picking up his toys and roughly shoving them into his backpack. Sharon came in a moment later, looking tired and mutinous.

“I hate coming over here,” Kyle complained.

“Well I hate you coming over here too!” She glared hard while Kyle stomped around the room grabbing action figures.

Tony’s eyes widened as he picked Steve up from where he’d dropped near the closet and cast a nasty look over his shoulder at Sharon before turning back to his backpack. Tony almost broke the Rules by shouting, but luckily Sharon caught him and hurried over. She reached out to grab Steve back.

“That’s mine!”

“No it’s not!” Kyle yelled, pulling.

Tony looked on in horror as the fight escalated with Steve caught between them, being yanked hard back and forth while the two kids screamed at each other. It was a nightmare.

“Hey!” Mom shouted, running up the stairs. Tony never thought he would be so happy to see her in the doorway. “ _What_ are you two screaming about?”

“He’s trying to steal my toy!” Sharon shouted, and then Kyle shoved her and she toppled over backwards.

“No one would want your stupid toy anyways!” Kyle yelled, throwing it at her.

Mom came forward and grabbed Kyle in one hand and yanked Sharon up with the other. “You two have been at each other all day, and I’m sick of it! Sharon, you are _grounded_ for the rest of the weekend. Kyle, get the rest of your toys – _only your toys_ – and go downstairs. Right now.”

Kyle wrenched his arm out of Mom’s grasp, grabbed Batman from the floor and viciously slammed him into the backpack. He stomped out of the room and pounded down the stairs. A moment later, the front door opened, and then slammed. Uncle Joe shouted after Kyle, and then the door opened and shut again.

Once he was gone, Mom took a steadying breath and pulled Sharon around to face her. “What is going on with you?”

“He started it,” Sharon defended. “He was being mean to me all day, and he called my toys stupid, and he tried to steal Captain America!”

“Captain America?” Mom asked. She frowned, and then looked down at the doll on the floor, and her expression turned angry. “Sharon Ann Carter! How many times have I told you not to go into the attic? This is your Aunt Peggy’s! Great-grandma made this just for her, and it’s very special, and very old!”

“Mom!” Sharon gasped, trying to grab the doll. “Mom, no! Please don’t take him away!”

“It’s not yours!” Mom said, shaking Sharon off and holding Steve out of her reach as she stood up. “Your aunt is coming to visit tomorrow and what would she say if she found her old toy ripped up? I can’t believe you would do this, Sharon! Get your room cleaned up right now, and just be grateful that I’m not taking all of your toys away!”

“ _Mom!_ ” Sharon screamed, but it was no use. Mom shut the door firmly behind her, leaving Sharon on the carpet to cry into her palms.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve struggled to keep his shudders at bay and remain Still. Mom had him clutched so hard in her grip that he could feel the thin metal of his wire frame starting to bend. She muttered darkly as she carried him downstairs, picked up a flashlight, and then took him back upstairs. Steve stared longingly at Sharon’s door, but Mom passed by and stopped in the middle of the hallway. She rose up on her toes to pull on a chord. The ladder to the attic came down with a loud creak, and Steve was smashed into each stair as she climbed up into the darkness.

The flashlight turned on with a _click_ , illuminating a dusty space of boxes and strange shadows. Mom continued to mutter as she hunted around the room until the flashlight passed over a box that said _Peggy’s Stuff_ in his girl’s familiar handwriting. Steve memorized the letters – neat and blocky, no frills, no flourishes. Peggy had never had time for that kind of nonsense. At least Mom had said that Peggy was coming to visit. Maybe Mom would tell Peggy that that Steve was up in the attic and Peggy would want to take him home. Even if he ended up just sitting on a shelf in her living room, it would be better than being sealed up in the darkness again.

Mom sat down on the floor next to the box and set Steve in her lap. She let out a loud breath and brushed her fingers over Steve’s face. “It’s been a long time since I saw you… Peggy loved you so much. I was jealous.”

Steve realized that Mom must have been June – Peggy’s baby sister. By the time June came along, Peggy was already in high school, and Steve mostly sat on the top of Peggy’s bookcase along with two of the Commandos and a stuffed cat. June had run off with him once and Peggy had been so mad when she’d discovered the theft that Steve had gotten to sleep in the bed one more time.

“Silly old thing. I’d almost forgotten about you.” She petted him again, and for a moment Steve thought that maybe he wouldn’t go back in the box after all. Maybe Mom – June – would decide that Steve could be Sharon’s doll after all. Maybe she would put him somewhere safe so Peggy could take him home when she came to visit.

Mom released another long breath, and then opened the box and lowered Steve to a bed of musty blankets. Steve watched, held helpless by the Rules, as the lid closed over him and he was plunged once more into darkness. He listened as Mom retreated down the attic stairs, and then the attic door creaked closed with a gentle _thump_.

Steve stood upright and pushed the box open. With the attic door closed, the only light came from a small round window on one wall. Steve dropped to the floor and walked over to it, tracking through a thick covering of dust on the way. The window was just low enough for him to reach, but once on the window sill, he found that it had been painted shut and wouldn’t open.

He was trapped.

~*~

Tony felt like he was vibrating, and had to fight very hard to keep from making any noise. She’d stayed on the rug and cried for what seemed like hours, and then had gone around the room counting heads. There was a scary few minutes when she couldn’t find Tony and was sure that Kyle had stolen him. Tony wanted to call out to her, but the damn _Rules_ were in the way. He had to lay where he was and let her grow increasingly upset and panicked while she called out for him. Tony kept his eyes on her and waited until she went back into the closet for another desperate search, and then quickly rolled out from under the bed. It was strictly against the Rules, and he felt an uncomfortable twitching in his stomach as he moved while there was a person in range.

He’d barely felt Still again when Sharon emerged from the closet in a fury. Her face was splotchy and her hair was a mess from the pool water and having been yanked up by her fists in her frustration. She turned a frantic circle around the room and then spotted Tony beside the bed and rushed over to scoop him up. She crushed him to her chest and rocked side-to-side.

“It’s not fair,” she said softly. “I would have taken such good care of him. Now he’s just going to be stuck in the attic forever.”

 _I’m sorry, my girl,_ Tony thought miserably.

Sharon turned off the light and crawled into bed, still in her swimming suit, and cuddled Tony to her chest. The poor girl had gone through such a stressful day, and then she lost her new friend on top of everything. Despite the uncomfortable buzzing, Tony broke the Rules again to softly pat her hand as she fell asleep. Even if she noticed, people were very good at rationalizing away when toys did things they didn’t believe were possible.

Sharon fell asleep quickly, exhausted by the long day. Her arms loosened and Tony tumbled away from her chest. Sharon dropped onto her back and rolled away, leaving Tony to unobtrusively crawl over the covers. The rest of the Avengers had been dropped in a heap on the other side of the bed, and Tony started tugging on feet and arms. They woke up slowly, quietly untangling from the pile. It wasn’t against the Rules to be awake while the kid was sleeping, and even if Sharon happened to open her eyes before someone had the chance to go Still, she would most likely think it was a dream.

“Poor Steve,” Jan whispered.

“I was closest to the door,” Thor said. “I heard Mom pull down the steps into the attic. Our friend must not be returned to the box from whence he was rescued.”

Tony took an unnecessary breath, and said, “We have go after him.”

“Are you _insane?_ ” Rhodey hissed. “How are we even supposed to get up there?”

“We’ve gone on solo missions before. You remember that time Peter accidentally ended up in the trash?”

Peter shuddered dramatically. “Don’t remind me.”

“Sneaking into the garage and knocking the lid off the trashcan is a little different than getting up into the attic!” Rhodey said, jostling Tony as he did. Sharon made a noise in her sleep, and they all went Still until she settled again.

“Rhodey has a point, Tony,” Jan said sadly once they were sure that Sharon wasn’t about to wake up. “The only way up there is through the stairs, and none of us are heavy enough to get them down, or tall enough to reach the chord in the first place. We’re just toys. We can’t really fly, or change size, or do anything useful at all.”

“It’s not the only way,” Natasha said into the resulting silence.

“Dad painted the window closed after we tried to sneak up from the rose trellis, Nat.”

Natasha pointed up to the ceiling and elbowed Clint. “It’s not the only way,” she repeated.

Clint clapped his hands together and made a gesture like he was snapping his fingers, though his fingers couldn’t separate to actually snap. “The last time we were rafted, Nat and I saw Dad get into the attic through the garage!”

“The door looked lighter and there were no stairs,” Natasha said. “He got into the space with a ladder, but there was a shelf nearby that we could use.”

“Oh no,” Rhodey said sharply and got hushed from a dozen different voices. They went quiet for a second, waiting to see if Sharon would wake up. “We can’t, Tony. What are we supposed to do if Sharon wakes up and we’re not here? Not to mention, if anyone actually finds us in the attic, there’s no explanation that even a _human_ could come up with to explain it. Bending the Rules is one thing, but this is toy-suicide. At best, Mom and Dad will think that Sharon put us up there and she’ll get in trouble.”

“So we just won’t get caught,” Tony insisted. “Look, tomorrow Sharon has swim lessons, and Mom said they have to go grocery shopping after. They’ll be gone for hours. More than enough time for us to get into the garage, get into the attic, get Steve, and get back. Easy.”

Rhodey shook his head. “This is crazy.”

“Then stay here. Birdbrain is in, who else is coming with me?”

Peter thrust his hand excitedly into the air. “Me, me, me!”

Rolling her eyes, Natasha pulled his hand down. “I’m in.”

“Sounds fun,” Sam put in. “I’m sure all the little tsums would come along.”

Tony shook his head as soon as he heard the chirping of happy tsum tsums from the net above. Tony made a _shushing_ gesture at them. “No way, you guys. We need someone to stay here and protect the room while we’re gone. Can’t have Magneto and his gang getting up to any funny business.”

The real reason was that the plushies would be filthy if they even looked at the attic sideways, and that would be hard to explain. Nonetheless, the tsum tsums made disappointed noises, but at a grumble from the big Hulk tsum, they turned to determined chirps.

“I will accompany you!” Thor announced. He smacked a hand into the Hulk’s shoulder, “As will this great oaf, will you not?”

The Hulk responded by shoving Thor over and flopping down on top of him.

Jan wrapped a hand around Vision’s arm and whispered, “We better stay to keep an eye on the tsums.”

Vision nodded regally – such a chatty guy. Tony turned to Rhodey and nudged his friend. When Rhodey didn’t immediately respond, Tony wedged his fingers under the faceplate and pulled it up. He quirked an eyebrow and waited for Rhodey to do the same.

Rhodey glanced around at the other Avengers and then crawled toward the footboard and gestured for Tony to follow. “What’s going on here, Tones?” he asked quietly.

“One of my toys has been taken out of the room and we have the means to get him back. That’s what’s going on.”

“Yesterday you were ready to punch the stuffing out of him.”

Tony shrugged. “Half of the time I want to punch the plastic out of Thor, but doesn’t mean I wouldn’t go after him if he got stuck up in the attic.”

Rhodey shook his head, huffed out a sigh, and said, “Fine. I guess I’ll come along. Someone is going to have to keep an eye on you.” He held his fist out, and they knocked their plastic knuckles together while their girl snored on behind them.

~*~

Maybe even Sharon could feel the excited tension in the room. She dragged her heels getting ready for swim lessons, and tried to tell Mom that she couldn’t go to class because she had slept in her swimming suit and she was too tired from swimming the day before. Mom wasn’t in the mood to be reasoned with, and just dug out Sharon’s old swimming suit that had Disney Princesses on it, but still fit. She complained the whole way out the door, and Tony could still hear her protesting until the van doors closed and the car started.

“Wait a few minutes to make sure they don’t come back for anything,” Tony said when everyone started climbing to their feet. Clint was already off the bed before Tony had even finished speaking, and no one bothered to listen to him except Rhodey.

Rhodey came to stand next to him at the window sill, and they watched together as the family van backed out of the driveway and into the street. “You sure you want to do this? We might have to hide him, even from Sharon. You know if she finds him in here, she’s going to think that Mom gave him back. She’ll probably go say thank you and that will get us all in trouble.”

“I know. We can do that if we have to.”

“This is stupid, man.”

Tony smiled. “I know.”

Rhodey thumped him on the back. “Alright. No time like the present, then.”

By the time they turned around, Clint had already gotten the bedroom door open and Peter was leaning around the doorframe to make sure there weren’t any people lingering in the house. Dad had left for work hours before and Mom wouldn’t usually turn around after they passed stoplight at the end of the street, unless whatever they’d forgotten was vital. Unless there was a thief in the house, it should be empty. Still, it was a good practice and Tony wasn’t about to discourage him.

Rhodey walked to the edge of the bed. “We better catch up or they’re going to leave without us.” He jumped down, rolled when he hit the carpet and waded through the crowd of onlookers that had gathered around the door curiously.

Tony followed after him, patting tsum tsums and raptors on his way to the door.

“Taking an unauthorized jaunt through the house?” Magneto asked with his mouth twitched up in a smirk. Behind him, Abomination thumped his fist into his hand. “Sounds dangerous.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “We’ll be back, so don’t get any ideas. I better not come back and find anyone tied up and swinging from the ceiling fan, or you’re the first toy I’m coming after.”

Magneto put an offended hand to his chest. “I would never.”

“Sure. Alright, everyone, listen up! As you all saw yesterday, Captain America has been taken by Mom. We have good intel that he’s back in the attic,” Tony said, patting Thor on the shoulder. “We’re going to get him back. Now, we should be back long before Mom and Sharon get home, but you should all be prepared for Sharon to panic if she gets home and can’t find us. If we don’t make it back by then, we’ll have to wait until dark, so no one send out any search parties. Jan and Vision are in charge until we get back.”

He didn’t ask if anyone had questions or he would be there all day answering them. The raptors all crept forward like they were going to sneak out with them, bodies low to the ground. Tony put a hand on Blue’s nose. “Not this time, girl. We might need you to come after us if we get lost.”

She made an unhappy noise and closed her mouth around his hand.

Tony gave her a firm swat on the nose with two fingers. “No,” he said, pointing at her. “No biting.”

She tilted her head to give him a considering look, but finally released his hand and straightened up, putting her nose in the air like she hadn’t ever wanted to bite him anyways, thank you very much.

“Hold done the fort,” he said to Vision and Jan. Jan gave him a thumbs-up, which Vision examined closely before imitating. Tony patted his hand. “Good man.”

It was a little strange walking around outside of Sharon’s room in the middle of the day. They’d been on solo missions before, but usually at night, and the only time they’d gone downstairs had been to rescue Peter from the trash. Fearless, Peter led them down the stairs, hoping down the bannister rungs while the rest of them slid down each step. Thor didn’t bother with lowering himself down the stairs and just tumbled down from the top, shook himself off at the first landing, and did it again down to the bottom. Not to be outdone, the Hulk went roaring after him.

“How are we going to explain Thor with a missing head?” Rhodey asked, watching Thor clatter to the tile floor. He sat up and put his hands on his head, rotating it back around the correct way.

“Just don’t let his head get lost,” Tony suggested, hopping down the last stair to the tile. He looked around as they walked, the clatter of their plastic feet on the tile loud in the silence. He’d never seen the house from his normal height in the light. Everything looked bigger, and the garage door seemed so much further away.

“This is king of creepy,” Sam said, “Like being in a haunted house or something.”

“A house without people. It’s like a nightmare.”

“I don’t know,” Tony said with a shrug. “Don’t get me wrong – I love Sharon, but it might be kind of nice to just be able to walk around whenever we wanted.”

“Without a kid to play with?” Clint asked, turning around to walk backwards. “You’re nuts. That would be the most boring thing in the universe.” He tripped over an uneven tile and sprawled out on the floor, his bow skittering into the kitchen. “Ow.”

“It probably would be,” Tony allowed, stopping to help him up. He dusted himself off and then turned for the kitchen while the rest of them came to a stop in front of the garage door.

The garage door was heavier than Sharon’s bedroom door, but there was a low table next to it and Peter was a master of door-opening. When they’d gone to rescue him before, the door had been cracked open already and the Hulk had managed to a wedge a hand into the crack and pry it open enough to get a book into it. The Hulk bustled up to it and made the motion of cracking his knuckles, but it didn’t look like it had been left open.

“Uh… guys?” Clint called from the kitchen. “Guys!”

“Clint we’re a little busy. We’ll find your bow later.”

“Run!” Clint shouted, careering around the kitchen door. “Run!”

“What on -?” Tony startled backwards as a large orange and white tabby tore after Clint, tail lashing, and leaving behind a trail of dirty pawprints. It skidded to a halt and turned around when it caught sight of the rest of them. “Run!” Tony repeated, taking off for the open kitchen door. It started after them, but Clint threw a set of keys down from the hall table and the cat jumped several feet in the air.

“Get the kitchen door closed!” Rhodey yelled.

“Cats jump!” Clint screamed behind them. Tony heard the clatter of him hitting the floor and the cat’s frustrated yowl immediately after. “Wait for me, wait for me!”

“Run faster, Birdbrain!” Tony suggested. They had the door closed to just a few inches. Tony’s eyes widened as the cat righted itself on the floor and scrambled after Clint’s retreating form. Clint hit the door and slid in sideways, reaching frantically for Natasha. She grabbed him by the arms and pulled just as the cat got a paw on his legs. Clint kicked it in the nose and it was so startled that it let him go long enough for Natasha drag him into the kitchen. As soon as he was clear of the door, they shoved it shut and pushed until it latched.

“Oh…my… god,” Clint panted.

“How did it get in here?” Rhodey asked, leaning against the door. The cat shoved a paw underneath and they all jumped away.

“Sharon would have told us if Mom and Dad had got a cat,” Tony said.

Clint pointed up over the counter. “Window. Someone left it open.”

“We better get out of here before the cat realizes that there’s another way in,” Natasha suggested, gesturing toward the bar that looked into the living room. At her feet, Clint was still panting dramatically. She hauled him up and gave him a shove toward the counter.

“Where are you going?” Rhodey asked.

“We’re not going to get to the garage door with the cat guarding it,” she pointed out. “Next best route is through the open window, and then into the garage through the high windows.”

“You want to go _outside_?” Rhodey threw his arms up. “This just keeps getting better.”

“What’s a’matter?” Hulk rumbled. “You scared?”

“Yeah,” Tony teased. “You scared?”

~*~

The back door to the garage ended up being locked, but the tiny window set up high in the wall wasn’t. One at a time, the Hulk boosted them up the rickety metal trashcan that Dad only used for grass clippings and managed to find hand and footholds in the wall. Tony was the last up, and stopped on the window sill to look down. With his hands permanently fused into fists, the Hulk was not a climber. He made another unsuccessful at the trashcan and nearly knocked it over.

The Hulk went tumbling down to the grass and pounded his fists into it in a fury.

“Calm down, buddy!” Tony called, trying to figure out how to get the bulky toy up the wall. Their trek to the garage had already taken a lot longer than he’d thought, and he wasn’t sure how much longer they had before Sharon and Mom got home. He wished they made watches small enough for toy wrists.

“Found some string!” Clint called from inside the garage. The window had been tough enough to open, but at least it had gotten stuck that way and wasn’t going to come down and boot Tony off the side. Clint appeared a moment later, hauling a spool of thick twine after him. He set it down and shook his hands out. “I hate this stuff,” he said, brushing off the fibers that had flaked off and caught in his joints.

“Let’s tie a loop that he can just put under his arms,” Tony suggested while the Hulk continued throwing his tantrum in the flower bed. It looked like he was gearing up for a fight with Mom’s rosebush, and Tony didn’t think that would work out in favor. “Quickly.”

“Hey! Greenbean!” Clint shouted. When the Hulk ignored him, he picked up a pebble from the corner of the sill and threw it. It hit the Hulk in the head and got another roar of anger out of him, but he finally looked up. “We’re going to pull you up. Put this under your arms.”

Tony tossed down the loop and they worked together to let out enough of the twine to reach to the ground. Hulk grasped it between both fists and looked up at them speculatively.

“Don’t do it,” Tony warned. “I’ll ground you to the closet for a week if you pull us down.”

The Hulk glared hard at them, but finally decided that Tony was serious. He yanked the loop down to his chest and crossed his arms over it.

“Do you think he’ll notice if I smack him into the wall a few times?” Clint muttered, but he kicked the twine ball back into the garage and called, “Start pulling on three!”

Gripping twine with plastic hands was not an easy task. The Hulk hit the ground twice before Clint finally just tied the twine around his waist and leapt into the garage. By the time Tony realized what he was doing, Thor, Sam, and Rhodey had all piled onto the rope and the Hulk came flying off the side, careened into Tony, and sent them all crashing into a bag of potting soil.

“It worked, didn’t it?” Clint said with a grin when Tony turned to glare at him.

Rhodey yanked his foot out of the soil and shook it off. “I guess we’re all sidetracking for a bath at some point,” he said, helping Sam up. Natasha had managed to land outside of the bag and just smirked at them as they untangled themselves. The Hulk eventually got frustrated with the process and started throwing toys and dirt out indiscriminately.

Tony hit the concrete floor with a clatter, and then Thor crashed into him a second later.

“Watch what you are doing, you massive oaf!” Thor shouted, getting to his feet and knocking Tony over again in the process. The Hulk launched himself out of the potting soil a moment later and the pair of them ended up rolling across the garage floor.

“You guys having fun down there?” Peter asked cheerfully. He was perched on the highest shelf next to a rectangle outlined in the ceiling.

Sam gave him a rude gesture in response and went off after the fighting toys. “I’ll get these two idiots, if you all want to get the attic door open.”

“All this climbing is not healthy for a toy,” Rhodey complained faintly, but he doggedly grabbed onto the first hole in the metal shelving frame and started climbing up. “Do you have any idea what this is doing to my paint?”

“Hey, look on the bright side,” Tony suggested, climbing up the other side of the shelving unit, “if you get too scratched, Sharon will repaint you with nail polish.”

“Why is that the bright side?” Rhodey asked. He pulled himself onto the top shelf next to Peter and walked across to help Tony up the last few inches.

Tony showed off his own recently-repainted arm. “Then you’ll sparkle.”

“If we can get some weight on this chord, the door should open,” Natasha interrupted before he and Rhodey could get into a fight over the merits of sparkle versus flat nail polish again, “It looked like it came down pretty easy for Dad.”

“Dad weighs like… a million pounds,” Peter protested. “Anything looks easy for him.”

Natasha hiked an eyebrow at him, looked at the swinging cord attached the door, and leapt off the shelf. She caught the string and managed to pinch it with her elbow joint, and then started to swing back and forth. The door started creaking open almost immediately.

“I love that woman,” Sam commented as he climbed onto the shelf. He put his hands on his hips to watch Natasha working her legs up and down to build up momentum.

Thor followed a moment later, and then turned to mock the Hulk as he inched up one leg of the frame, arms and legs wrapped completely around it. Tony could hear the Hulk muttering his revenge as he slapped one fist on the shelf below them and hauled himself up. Tony yanked Thor away from the edge just as the Hulk’s giant fist appeared where Thor’s feet had been.

“We don’t need any broken toys today,” Tony said, but Thor just laughed and crouched down to help pull his friend up. They were a weird pair.

“I need more weight!” Natasha called, and Clint didn’t even hesitate. When she was closest to the shelves, he leapt and caught her waist. The door swung open, making them flail wildly at the end of the tiny string, and Clint was nearly sent flying. He managed to catch Nat’s feet at the last moment and she held still so he could climb back up her body and grab hold of the door.

“Now what?” Clint called, craning around to look up into the darkness of the attic.

Tony pointed to the big arch of the hinge. “I think I can catch onto that from here and pull myself up.”

“Tony,” Sam said, laying a forestalling hand on his shoulder. “If you miss that jump…. It’s a long way down.”

“I’ll make it,” Tony said with more confidence than he felt. He backed up all the way to the wall, got a running start, and leapt. For a plastic-melting moment, he thought he wasn’t going to make it, but then he hit the door faceplate-first, and managed to get an arm looped around the hinge. “Wow, that was a lot scarier than I thought it was going to be!” he exclaimed. He knew he didn’t have a heart, but he imagined it was beating about three and a half million times a second.

“Me next!” Peter called in response.

“No!” Tony shouted, but Rhodey and Thor grabbed him before he could do more than brace himself for a jump. “No sense in us all risking limbs. I’ll climb up and get Cap. You guys pull those moving blankets out,” he said, pointing to a box of gray scratchy blankets Dad had used for the last move. “Cap and I probably won’t be able to get from the door to the self, so we’ll need a soft spot to land.”

“On it!” Sam answered, and then his wings popped out and he took a leap right off the shelf, hit the open box of blankets, and bounced out to land in the potting soil again.

“Smooth!” Rhodey called, obviously annoyed. Tony might have been the room master, but Rhodey was undeniably the room mom, and he mother-henned all the other toys like it was job. “One of these days you’re not going to land in something soft.”

Sam yanked his head out of the soil and spit out a mouthful of dirt. “Who said that was soft?” he asked miserably.

“See what happens when we go on solo missions?” Rhodey asked Tony, shaking his head. “I also don’t appreciate you having us climb up here just so we could climb down.”

“Spontaneous decision making,” Tony defended with a smile. He waved and hauled himself up the slippery hinge, wedging his fingers into the metal joints and doing his best not to let on that it was a terrifying climb. Honestly, he hadn’t thought too hard about how they were going to get into the attic once they’d gotten into the garage, and probably should have planned that out just a little bit.

“Cap?” he called as he got a hand on the attic floor and fought to pull himself up. “You awake up here?”

“…Tony?”

Steve poked his head around a box, and then rushed forward and helped Tony up. “What are you _doing?_ ” he demanded, giving Tony a good yank.

They both tumbled backwards in the dust, sending a cloud of it up into the air. The sunlight through the tiny round window made it glow. It was actually very pretty. Tony rolled off of Steve to lay on his back and stared up at the motes of dust floating in the light. Steve was the first to sit up and he made a vain attempt to pat dust off his arms.

“What are you doing up here?” he asked again.

Tony pulled his faceplate up and gave Steve a bright smile. “I’m here to rescue you for your dreary tower, Princess.”

“Are you completely _insane_? You left the room in the middle of the day and got up here by yourself?” He crawled over Tony to look through the opening to the garage. “And you brought the others with you? What are you going to do if Mom and Sharon come home right now and open the garage. They’ll all be caught in the open!”

Tony grabbed Steve by one arm and put a hand over his mouth. “You talk too much, and you worry way too much. Rhodey is the designated worrier. We can’t have two. Now, come on – it’s going to be a bit of a fall, but you’re plushy anyways, so it won’t hurt you at all.”

“You want me to leave the attic?” Steve asked softly, mouth falling open. “Tony… Mom will just find me again and blame Sharon.”

Shrugging, Tony said, “So we’ll just keep you hidden from Sharon too. The back corner of the bed never gets checked. Then at least you can come out when Sharon’s away, and you won’t have to be…” Tony gestured to the dusty attic with an exaggerated shudder. “Here. Seriously, this place is giving me allergies and I don’t even have a real nose.”

Steve stared at him in stunned silence for a minute, and then looked back at the other end of the attic where the box of Peggy’s Stuff was out close to the hallway door.

“Hey! Come on, you two!” Clint called. “I think I hear the van down the street. We’ve gotta go!”

“Coming or staying, Cap?” Tony asked, though he wanted to just push Steve out the door. He waited impatiently for Steve to make up his mind.

“I guess we can’t have you getting allergies,” Steve said with his mouth pulled up into a lopsided smile. Without another word, he tumbled through the open door, landed on the open box of blankets, and rolled back to his feet.

“Please don’t break anything unfixable,” Tony said to himself, and then followed suit. He hit the blankets hard enough to make his joints rattle, but everything looked like it was in one piece. Steve pulled him up as soon as he’d stopped moving and they set off for the still open window at a run. Most of the toys were already outside and Hulk was sliding down the twine by the time Tony and Steve got to the window sill, and Tony could definitely hear the van now too. It could have been any car, but they could all identify the sound of Mom and Dad’s cars over any other, and he knew they were about to be in real trouble.

“Quick!” Rhodey called, gesturing frantically from the open kitchen window. The van turned the last corner and would be in the driveway in seconds. Tony just hoped that the stray cat had gotten bored and jumped back out the window, or they might have to hide in a kitchen cupboard until nightfall.

Hulk was just getting to the top of the rose trellis with Thor and Peter hanging down to pull him up. Steve sprinted away from Tony’s side and leapt onto the trellis. He got his shoulder under Hulk’s feet and pushed up hard, catapulting the bigger toy up to the window ledge, where he was quickly pulled inside. Tony winced at the clatter of something being knocked off the counter and jumped onto the trellis himself. Steve made it up first and held a hand out to help him just as the van pulled into the driveway.

“We’re not going to make it!” Peter cried. They jumped to the floor just as the van’s sliding back door opened.

“They’ve got groceries,” Tony pointed out, jumping down to the kitchen floor with everyone else. “We can make it! Forget the door – just go through the living room!”

They were moving faster than they had ever scrambled for places before. Tony jumped over the plastic cup that had been knocked to the floor and made a leap for the opposite counter. A short climb over the ledge had them all spilling down onto the couch and they made a run for the stairs. Tony could hear Sharon talking excitedly and Mom’s keys clattering as they skidded around the corner into the hallway.

Peter and Natasha were half way up the stairs with Thor and Hulk right behind, but Mom already had her keys out and there was no way the rest of them would make it. Tony got that uncomfortably buzzing sensation in his legs that meant he really needed to go Still right away, but he pushed through it.

The keys hit the porch with a musical jingle.

“Oh, thank God,” Steve huffed out, hitting the stairs on all fours and going up them like a monkey.

Tony and Rhodey ended up in the rear, and they leapt up each step, grasping the carpet fibers to get over the sides. The keys went in the lock, and there was no way they should all still be moving, but they had another few seconds while the door was swinging open, so Tony grabbed Rhodey’s hand and urged him up the last two steps.

The door hit the wall just as they got around the bannister. The rest of the toys were safe back in the room, and Rhodey and Tony should have gone still just that instant, but Tony hauled his friend forward. They rolled into the safety of Sharon’s room and made a run for the bed.

“Down!” Rhodey called.

Tony dropped where he was in the center of the rug just as Sharon pushed into the room. He ended up face down, so he couldn’t see her, but he heard her hesitate in the doorway.

“… I thought I left you on the bed, Iron Man,” she said faintly, kneeling down on the carpet.

From downstairs, they heard Mom shout, “Oh my god! _SHARON!”_

They were _so_ busted.

Mom came flying up the stairs a minute later, grabbed Sharon by the arm and pulled her right out of the room. Sharon was so shocked that she kept her grip on Tony, and they were both swung up into Mom’s arms as she went running back down the stairs.

“Mom, what’s happening?” Sharon asked, obviously scared. Tony flopped around in her hand like a ragdoll, watching the stairs go by in a blur.

The door opened just as Mom was reaching for it, and she screamed, which made Sharon scream, and the woman on the other side scream.

“June, my god! What on Earth - ?”

Mom grabbed her and pulled her back outside. “Someone’s been in the house,” she explained, hustling her away from the door.

“June!”

Mom finally turned around and Tony realized that it was Aunt Peggy. She had her hair up in a tail and her sunglasses had been knocked half off her face so they hung down near her chin. She pulled them off and tucked them into the front of her shirt.

“June, calm down! I’ll check it out.” She reached into the back waistband of her pants and pulled out a small gun before forging back into the house. Steve was sure going to be happy to see her, and for a second, Tony was a little envious that he’d never been Peggy’s toy.

“Mommy, what’s going on?” Sharon asked.

Mom put Sharon down in the grass and knelt down with her. “It’s okay, honey. It just looks like someone was in the house while we were gone, and I didn’t know if maybe they were still there.”

A loud yowling came from inside the house, and then the orange and white tabby went tearing out of the front door and disappeared around the side of the garage. Mom let out an explosive sigh of relief, and then Aunt Peggy came out laughing. She shoved her gun back into her waistband and plopped down on the grass with them.

“It’s all clear,” Aunt Peggy said, “But it looks like someone has been in the garage, and maybe tried to get into the attic. Did you set the alarm before you left?”

Mom put a hand on her chest and shook her head. “No, we were in such a rush, I forgot.”

“I told you –”

“I know!” Mom interrupted. “I know.”

Tony felt a stab of guilt at that, realizing that with the attic door open and the box of blankets moved, not to mention the potting soil all over the garage floor, it would look like a person had been rustling around in there. He wanted to confess, but of course there were Rules.

“You call Michael,” Aunt Peggy said, “and I’ll call the police.”

Aunt Peggy helped Mom up and Sharon clutched Tony hard to her chest while they crept back inside. Mom grabbed her purse off the floor by the door and sat on the bottom of the stairs to call Dad while Aunt Peggy took out her cellphone, leaving Sharon and Tony alone to take in the mess. The keys Clint had thrown earlier were still on the floor, along with a mess of mail and papers that the cat must have knocked off, they’d left a track of dirt through the living room, as well as the plastic cup on the kitchen floor, which was compounded by the groceries that had spilled out of the bags.

While the adults were on the phone, Sharon crept back up the stairs to her room. “Someone must have tried to take you,” she realized, hugging Tony again, “That’s why you were off the bed. Did you fight them off, Iron Man?”

She started hunting around the room for the rest of her toys, most of them out of place in the disaster of their escape back to the bedroom, but they were all accounted for. She sat back down on the rug with them all arranged around her, doing another head count just to be sure, and then she gasped aloud and crawled under the bed.

“Cap!”

 _So busted._ Worst rescue operation in toy history!

Sharon pulled Steve out from under the bed and turned him over. He was filthy from the attic and the mad dash back to the room, and his shield had been knocked eschew on his arm. Sharon fixed it, and then gave him a tight hug.

“I thought I’d never see you again!” She stopped and grabbed Tony. “Was it a rescue, Iron Man? I bet there was never anyone in here at all!”

“Sharon, dear?”

Sharon jumped guiltily and tried to hide Steve as she twisted to face the door. Peggy stood in the doorway with her cellphone in one hand, smiling. “Are you okay?”

“Yes!” Sharon said too quickly, twisting around even further and trying to keep Steve hidden behind her.

Aunt Peggy stepped into the room and knelt down on the carpet, and then twisted so she was sitting cross-legged. She picked Tony up and curiously brushed the dust off the bottom of his boots. She gave him a speculative look that was so focused, Tony worried that maybe she could tell he was alive. Finally, she set him down in her lap and looked at the other toys.

“I see you’re still getting along with all the Avengers,” she observed, picking up Vision with a smile. “Have you read all those old comics I sent you?”

“They’re my favorite!” Sharon said excitedly, and forgot that she was shielding Steve as she twisted and crawled over to her desk to take a stack of comic books out of the drawer. By the time she’d turned around, Peggy had picked Steve up and was staring down at him.

Tony’s heart sank. They’d gone through all that trouble, and Steve was just going to end up back in the attic.

“Hello, Steve,” Peggy said quietly. “It’s been a long time. I’d forgotten that you were here. I’ve been looking for you, you know.”

Sharon slunk back to her spot on the carpet and mumbled, “I found him in the attic, but then Mom said he was special and I wasn’t supposed to have him and she took him away. I promise I didn’t go get him again!” Sharon hurried. “I wasn’t even here! I just came home and he was under my bed, really!”

Peggy hushed her gently. “I believe you, darling. You know, I used to find Steve in all the weirdest places when I was a kid, and I could have sworn that he moved all on his own. Your uncle was convinced that he was haunted, you know.”

“That’s silly,” Sharon said, but she relaxed and smiled.

Unnoticed in Peggy’s lap, Tony relaxed too. Maybe Steve wouldn’t be exiled back to the attic after all.

“Well, silly or not,” Peggy said, “he did seem to get around a lot. I’m glad you found him. You know, when I was your age, girls reading comic books and playing with superhero toys was just not done. I was teased a lot in school because I liked ‘boy things,’ and played with G.I. Joes.”

Sharon nodded, reaching forward to pick up Clint. She tugged idly at his bow. “Me too,” she confessed.

“Want to know a secret, my darling?” Peggy asked, reaching forward to lift Sharon’s chin. “There are no such things as ‘boy things’ at all. My grandma made Steve for me, and he helped me through a lot of tough times when I was your age.” She hesitated, but finally reached forward and laid Steve in Sharon’s lap. “Maybe he can help keep you safe too.”

“Really?” Sharon asked, hugging Steve to her chest. “You mean it?”

“Of course! Captain America is highly underrated and will be great friends with your Iron Man.” Peggy gave her a hug, spilling Tony to the floor, and Sharon squeezed Steve and Clint so hard together that Tony thought he saw Steve’s chest puffing out with stuffing.

“Peggy, are you up here?” Mom called, poking her head around the door. When she saw the two of them on the rug, she came in and sat down next to them. As soon as they pulled away, she saw Steve in Sharon’s arms and frowned. “Sharon, where did you get that? I put it back in the attic last night!”

“It’s alright, June. I just gave him to her.”

Mom gave her a confused look, but she was obviously too overwhelmed to be angry and just ran her hand through her hair. “What a day.”

“Is Michael coming home?”

Mom nodded. “He’s on his way. Peggy, would you mind looking through attic for me? I just want to make sure there’s no one hiding up there.”

Peggy ruffled Sharon’s hair and then stood up. “Of course.”

~*~

In the darkness, Steve waited impatiently for Sharon’s breathing to even out into deep sleep. The rest of the day had been stressful and hectic for his girls – the police had been in the house for a while, and then Dad had stomped around and yelled a bit about always setting the alarm, and then everything had calmed down and they’d had pizza for dinner. Steve had even been taken downstairs with Iron Man for pizza and a movie, pressed against Peggy’s thigh on the couch with Iron Man’s on Sharon’s other side.

 He’d been so overjoyed to be held by Peggy again. She was a lot older than he remembered, but she was still beautiful, and amazing. He’d been surprised by the swell of happiness he’d felt when Peggy had handed him over to Sharon. The night before, all he’d wanted was to go home to his girl, but somewhere along the lines, Sharon had started being his girl. He still loved Peggy, and he hoped that she was going to stay for a while to play with them, but Sharon’s room was his home.

Sharon finally fell into a deep enough sleep that the buzzing feeling in Steve’s framework went away. He twisted gently in Sharon’s arms until he was facing Iron Man.

“Hey, wake up.”

“I’m awake,” Iron Man said softly. “What a crazy day.”

“You shouldn’t have come after me,” Steve said, and he meant it – not only had all the toys almost been hurt, but they’d caused a lot of problems for the people. He reached out to grab Tony’s arm before he could roll away. “And I’m really… _really_ glad you did. The thought of being up there all alone again… Thank you.”

Tony was quiet for a minute, but then reached up and put his hand on Steve’s side. “No problem. Besides, you heard Peggy. We’re going to be great friends.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you thought!
> 
> I do my best to reply to all my comments, even just to say 'thank you!' (though I can't promise that it will be very quickly). If you don't want/need a reply, feel free to include "NRN" in your comment.
> 
> Come visit me on Tumblr: http://lightshadowverisimilitude.tumblr.com/


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